Time and economic burden of comorbidities among COPD inpatients

Abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major public health problem and usually associated with various comorbidities. Base on electronic health records of inpatients, aged 40 to 80 years old, from 169 hospitals located across China between 2013 and 2014, this paper summarized 27 comorbidities of COPD and compared the time and economic burdens of COPD patients to non-COPD patients. The 17 comorbidities included in Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and 10 additional comorbidities were employed while odds ratios were considered to compare differences. The results disclosed that COPD patients had higher comorbidity burdens than non-COPD patients did. Moreover, COPD patients had 6.40% more hospital stay and 12.96% lower medical cost. Seven morbidities had positive correlations with hospital stay and medical cost, which indicated that COPD patients should be paid more attention to those comprehensive comorbidities when making therapeutic plans.