What are the risk factors for acute care hospital readmission within one month of discharge in persons aged 65 years and over in Western countries?
Risk factors for 30-day hospital readmission in older adults are diverse and inconsistently reported, limiting their value as universal risk adjusters.
We found several significant, but inconsistent, associations between readmission to an acute care hospital within one month of discharge in persons aged 65 years and over. These associations involved a mix of socio-demographic factors, factors related to health and illness, previous hospitalizations, length of stay as well as clinical and organizational determinants related to the index admission. Although more studies concluded that certain diagnoses or comorbid conditions affected the risk of readmission, they did not agree on any disease in particular.Due to the breadth and diversity of variables examined and the lack of comparability of findings, the impact of these varying factors and their value as risk adjusters and application in different settings and populations are limited.
Pedersen et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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