A recent study found a link between gender and the department in which a patient is hospitalized and mortality and length of stay.
The study, published in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, analyzed data from 531 patients with community-acquired infections in a Hungarian hospital. Patients were ages 0 to 9, 60 to 69, 70 to 79 and 80 to 89.
Those hospitalized in the department of pediatrics or were female were less likely to stay in the hospital for more than six days. Meanwhile, those hospitalized in the department of pulmonology or surgery had longer hospital stays.
The type of community-acquired infection also affected mortality and hospitalizations. MDR bacterial infections had a 26.24 percent high mortality rate, while E. coli and Klebsiella spp were associated with increased likelihood to stay in the hospital for more than six days.
"Our findings provide new information on the epidemiology of CAI and can contribute to the development of public health programs that decrease the burden of infections acquired in the community," the researchers concluded, according to a Feb. 19 article in American Journal of Managed Care. "Further studies are needed to characterize cases with CAI, especially those caused by MDR bacteria, to understand which factors increase the length of hospital stay and risk of death in patients."