a retrospective study of readmission in acute traumatic spinal cord injury patients

Research Article
Arnab Sinha and Rashmi Sharma
DOI: 
xxx-xxxx-xxx
Subject: 
Medical
KeyWords: 
ATSCI, readmission, pressure sore, UTI, psychiatric complains
Abstract: 

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results not only in a devastating change to a person's physical functioning and independence, but predisposes the individual to various secondary medical complications throughout life, which may interfere with health and well-being, social activity, productive employment and quality of life. After the primary treatment and discharge the patient needs to be readmitted for these secondary medical complications. The high costs associated with rehospitalisation after SCI is a matter of concern and should be highlighted. In addition, health care costs and utilisation of services due to medical complications have been shown to increase with age and duration postinjury. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency and cause of rehospitalisations in individuals with acute traumatic spinal cord injury (ATSCI) living in the community. A retrospective study of case records of 100 patients of spinal cord injury was done to find our the incidence and causes of readmission (for spinal causes) within 1 year of discharge. The data was collected in two parts. The part A was the demographic details and the part B was the causes of readmission. The part B was further divided into genitourinary, gastrointestinal, skin issues, musculoskeletal, psychiatric disorders and others. Those who were admitted more than once and those who were readmitted for more than one category of cause were included as such in the study.