Inpatient Treatment of Patients Admitted for Dizziness: A Population-Based Healthcare Research Study on Epidemiology, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Outcome.

OBJECTIVE

To determine inpatient treatment rates of patients with dizziness with focus on diagnostics, treatment and outcome.

STUDY DESIGN

Retrospective population-based study.

SETTING

Inpatients in the federal state Thuringia in 2014.

PATIENTS

All 1,262 inpatients (62% females, median age: 61 yr) treated for inpatient dizziness were included.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

The association between analyzed parameters and probability of improvement and recovery was tested using univariable and multivariable statistics.

RESULTS

Final diagnosis at demission was peripheral vestibular disorder (PVD), central vestibular disorder (CVD), cardiovascular syndrome, somatoform syndrome, and unclassified disease in 75, 9, 3, 0.6, and 13%, respectively. The most frequent diseases were acute vestibular neuritis (28%) and benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (22%). The follow-up time was 38 ± 98 days. 88.5% of patients showed at least an improvement of complaints and 31.4% a complete recovery. The probability for no improvement from inpatient dizziness was higher if the patient had a history of ear/vestibular disease (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.506; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.301-1.742), and was taking more than two drugs for comorbidity (HR = 1.163; CI = 1.032-1.310). Compared with final diagnosis of cardiovascular syndrome, patients with PVD (HR = 1.715; CI = 1.219-2.415) and CVD (HR = 1.587; CI = 1.076-2.341) had a worse outcome.

CONCLUSIONS

Inpatient treatment of dizziness was highly variable in daily practice. The population-based recovery rate was worse than reported in clinical trials. We need better ways to implement clinical trial findings for inpatients with dizziness.