Technology-dependency among patients discharged from a children's hospital: a retrospective cohort study

BMC Pediatrics

Table 2 Medical characteristics of subjects

		Percentage (%) (n = 100)	95% CI
Most frequent diagnostic categories *
	Neoplasm and chemotherapy	15	9 – 24
	Respiratory infections	9	4 – 16
	Asthma	5	2 – 11
	Gastroenteritis	5	2 – 11
	Appendicitis	4	1 – 10
	Epilepsy or seizure	3	0.6 – 9
	Malfunctioning device or graft	3	0.6 – 9
Length of stay
	1 day	10	5 – 18
	2 days	25	17 – 35
	3 days	24	16 – 34
	4–7 days	27	17 – 37
	8 to 103 days	14	8 – 22
Devices *
	Gastrostomy or jejuenostomy tubes	10	5 – 18
	Central venous line	7	3 – 14
	Medication nebulizer	7	3 – 14
	Ventriculoperitoneal shunt	2	0.2 – 7
	Tracheotomy	1	0.03 – 5
Number of medications §
	0	18	11 – 27
	1	20	13 – 29
	2	26	18 – 36
	3	16	10 – 26
	4	7	3 – 14
	5 or more	12	6 – 20
Number of daily medication administrations noted ‡
	0 or PRN	33	24 – 44
	1–4	30	21 – 40
	5–9	24	16 – 34
	10–22	12	6 – 20
Home nursing care		8	4 – 15
Other forms of home care		7	3 – 14
Disposition
	Home	91	84 – 96
	Transfer	3	0.6 – 9
	Death	1	0.03 – 6
	Unknown	5	2 – 11

* For the categories of diagnoses and devices, a given subject could be counted multiple times if noted to have had multiple diagnoses or devices. §Medications were counted as those medications ordered at the time of discharge from the hospital; accordingly, the one case that died is omitted so that n = 99 for this variable as well as "number of daily medication administrations". ‡ Number of daily medication administrations is a count of the number of times any medication dose is delivered in a day, so that a count of 10 could indicate 2 medications given 5 times a day, or 10 medications each given once.

ISSN: 1471-2431