Patients who leave the hospital against medical advice are twice as likely to be readmitted as those discharged on a physician's recommended timeline, according to a study published in The American Journal of Medicine.
For the study, researchers analyzed data on 23 million hospitalizations of adult patients in 2014. Hospitalizations occurred at more than 2,000 hospitals across 22 states.
About 10 percent of hospitalizations (2.4 million total) involved at least one unplanned hospital readmission within 30 days. Of these, 290,000 involved a discharge that contradicted medical advice.
About 20 percent of patients discharged against medical advice experienced a readmission within 30 days, compared to 10 percent of patients discharged normally. These patients were also more than 18 times more likely to have a repeat discharge against medical advice, according to Reuters.
"Interventions to reduce against medical advice discharges, particularly at hospitals with high rates of such discharges, may reduce the overall readmission burden in this challenging and high-risk patient population," researchers concluded.