Abstract

 
 
 Background: Hospital admissions due to asthma are a reliable source of information on the morbidity of the disease which, after the increase observed in the last quarter of the last centu- ry, shows a declining trend in the last few years. The aim of this study was to look at hospital admission trends due to asthma in our community and analyze some of its associated factors.
 Methods: Retrospective analysis of all hospital admissions involving adults aged 15 years and older with asthma as the primary or secondary diagnosis (if the first diagnosis was res- piratory failure or respiratory infection) in Public Health Service hospitals in the Galician region of Spain between the years 1995-2009 (total 24,766 admissions).
 Results: The majority of patients admitted were female (71%), over 60 years of age (64%), and admission occurred predomi- nantly in the winter months. The hospitalization rate due to asthma tripled over the period studied, this being mainly accounted for by women aged over 60 years. Mean hospital stay was 9.2 days, longer in older patients or those admitted over the weekend.
 Conclusions: A significant increase in hospital admissions due to asthma over the last few years has been observed in our community, mainly involving older women. The mean stay seems long, increasing with patients’ age and admission over the weekend.
 
 
Highlights
Asthma affects 300 million people in the world, FJ Gonzalez-Barcala, J Aboal, L Valdes, JM Carreira, JM Alvarez-Dobaño, A Puga, MT Garcia-Sanz, B Takkouche Trends in adult asthma hospitalization – Trend di ospedalizzazione nell’asma dell’adulto with a prevalence greater than 10% in developed countries and 180,000 deaths per year attributable to the disease [1]
The most significant increase was seen in women over 60 years, an increasing trend was observed in all the age and sex groups (Figure 1)
Hospital admissions due to asthma can be a reliable indicator of how the morbidity of this disease is evolving, many countries still do not have such data available [2]
Summary
Asthma affects 300 million people in the world, FJ Gonzalez-Barcala, J Aboal, L Valdes, JM Carreira, JM Alvarez-Dobaño, A Puga, MT Garcia-Sanz, B Takkouche Trends in adult asthma hospitalization – Trend di ospedalizzazione nell’asma dell’adulto with a prevalence greater than 10% in developed countries and 180,000 deaths per year attributable to the disease [1]. During the last quarter of the last century an increasing trend in asthma-related hospital admissions has been observed, in the last few years this trend seems to be changing [4,5]; there are significant differences between countries as well as between sexes and age groups [2,5]. The purpose of this study was to describe, in the adult population of our community, hospital admission trends due to asthma Another aim was to characterize the epidemiology of this condition, analyzing differences due to age and sex, as well as the duration of the hospital stay, and identify some of the determining factors of these. Hospital admissions due to asthma are a reliable source of information on the morbidity of the disease which, after the increase observed in the last quarter of the last century, shows a declining trend in the last few years. The mean stay seems long, increasing with patients’ age and admission over the weekend
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