title: Variable lengths of stay among ischemic stroke subtypes in Chinese general teaching hospitals.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Length of stay (LOS) is one of the most important quantitative indexes that measures health service utilization within a hospital. Many studies have examined the association of three major stroke categories with LOS. Our aim is to investigate the differences of LOS among ischemic stroke subtypes, results from which are helpful to healthcare providers and government agencies to improve health care delivery efficiency.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Using the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau's hospitalization summary reports, we performed a retrospective study among first-ever in-hospital patients with ischemic stroke (ICD-10 I63) in three general teaching hospitals in Beijing, China, from 2006 to 2010 with generalized linear model. In our study, 5,559 patients (female, 36.0%; age, 64.4 ± 12.9 years) were included. The estimated mean LOS of ischemic stroke was 17.4 ± 1.8 days. After adjusting for confounders, LOS of lacunar infarction (14.7 days; p<0.001) and LOS of small cerebral infarction (17.0 days; p=0.393) were shorter than that of single cerebral infarction (17.9 days, p<0.001). LOS of multi-infarct (19.0 days; p=0.028), brainstem infarction (19.3 days; p=0.045), basal ganglia infarction (18.5 days; p=0.452) and other subtypes of ischemic stroke (18.9 days; p=0.327) were longer than that of single cerebral infarction.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  LOS of ischemic stroke patient differes across single cerebral infarction, lacunar infarction, multi-infarct and brainstem infarction patients. The ascending order of LOS was lacunar infarction, small cerebral infarction, single cerebral infarction, basal ganglia infarction, other subtypes of ischemic stroke, multi-infarct and brainstem infarction.
authors.affiliation: Peking University Medical Informatics Center, Peking University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Guo-Pei
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Xie-Min
authors.initials: XM
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Ming-Hui
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Lue Ping
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002545:Brain Ischemia / Q000145:classification* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000453:epidemiology; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006769:Hospitals, General / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020521:Stroke / Q000145:classification* / Q000453:epidemiology*