title: Hospital admission in children up to the age of 2 years.
abstract: The description and analysis of the utilisation of medical services is of particular importance reflecting childhood morbidity. Therefore, our aim was to describe episode- and person-based rates of hospital admission in Germany, by focusing on the three most important clinically relevant categories, accident injuries, respiratory and digestive diseases in children up to the age of 2 years. The analysis was based on data from the LISA-study, a prospective population based birth cohort study including 3097 full-term infants. Information was collected by parent questionnaires and data was analysed concerning gender, region and social status. In the age-group 7-24 months, 14.5% of all children were at least once hospitalised, 2.5% for accident injuries, 3.0% for respiratory and 4.7% for digestive diseases. More boys than girls were admitted to hospital due to respiratory diseases (4.2% vs. 1.7%) and more children from East compared to West Germany due to digestive diseases (7.2% vs. 3.5%). In families with median or low level education more children were admitted for digestive diseases than with high (6.5% and 6.5% vs. 3.6%). The number of hospitalisation episodes per person showed that most children were hospitalised only once during the period from 7 to 24 months. In conclusion this analysis shows that hospital admission is common and not equally distributed concerning sex, parental education and region in German children. Physicians should pay special attention to these susceptive subgroups and differences in health related behaviour and in the distribution of health facilities have to be reduced. Additionally, multiple admissions play only a minor role concerning hospital admission in children up to the age of 2 years.
authors.affiliation: Helmholtz Zentrum Munich, Center for Environment and Health, Institute of Epidemiology, Neuherberg, Germany. Schnabel@helmholtz-muenchen.de
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Schnabel
authors.forename: Stefanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sausenthaler
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liese
authors.forename: Olf
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Herbarth
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Borte
authors.forename: Beate
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schaaf
authors.forename: Ursula
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Krämer
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: von Berg
authors.forename: H-Erich
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Wichmann
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Heinrich
mesh_terms: D000059:Accidents / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004066:Digestive System Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005859:Germany, East / Q000453:epidemiology; D005860:Germany, West / Q000453:epidemiology; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009017:Morbidity; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012140:Respiratory Tract Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D017678:Sex Distribution; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology