Ndanga Memory, Srinivasan Shankar
Health Information Management, Rutgers University, Piscataway, USA.
Informatics, Rutgers University, Piscataway, USA.
Cureus. 2019 Dec 30;11(12):e6516. doi: 10.7759/cureus.6516.
Background Drug abuse has been on the increase over the last few years, contributing to the healthcare cost. An understanding of the overall impact of drug abuse hospitalizations is essential in combatting the drug abuse epidemic. Objective To evaluate inpatient outcomes of total charges and length of stay for patients with drug abuse comorbidity compared to non-drug abuse admissions. Method The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Nationwide Inpatient Sample data was utilized. Drug abuse comorbidity was used as defined by HCUP. Various descriptive and inferential analyses were performed on the filtered data sets for the years 2010 to 2014. Results The average hospitalization length of stay was 4.5 days for non-drug abuse and 5.5 days for drug abuse comorbidity (P < 0.001). Mean charges for drug abuse comorbidity were significant for claims to private insurance and Medicaid. Conclusion Total charges and length of stay are higher for drug abuse than non-drug abuse cases. The results will aid as a reference for resource allocation and policy changes. Further research is needed for alternative and innovative interventions for conditions that are identified to be co-existing with drug abuse comorbidity.
在过去几年中，药物滥用呈上升趋势，增加了医疗成本。了解药物滥用住院的总体影响对于抗击药物滥用流行至关重要。目的：评估与非药物滥用入院患者相比，患有药物滥用合并症患者的住院总费用和住院时间等住院结局。方法：使用医疗保健成本和利用项目（HCUP）全国住院样本数据。药物滥用合并症按照HCUP的定义来确定。对2010年至2014年的筛选数据集进行了各种描述性和推断性分析。结果：非药物滥用患者的平均住院时间为4.5天，药物滥用合并症患者为5.5天（P<0.001）。药物滥用合并症的平均费用在私人保险和医疗补助索赔方面具有显著性差异。结论：药物滥用患者的总费用和住院时间高于非药物滥用病例。这些结果将有助于作为资源分配和政策变化的参考。对于确定与药物滥用合并症共存的情况，需要进一步研究替代和创新干预措施。
