Excess body weight in children may increase the length
                    of hospital stay

Fernandes, Maria Teresa Bechere; Danti, Gabriel Vecchi; Garcia, Denise Maximo Lellis; Ferraro, Alexandre A.

doi:10.6061/clinics/2015(02)03

Acessibilidade / Reportar erro

Brasil

Español English

sumário « anterior atual seguinte »

Sumário

CLINICAL SCIENCES • Clinics 70 (2) • Feb 2015 • https://doi.org/10.6061/clinics/2015(02)03 copy

Excess body weight in children may increase the length of hospital stay

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

OBJECTIVES:

To investigate the prevalence of excess body weight in the pediatric ward of University Hospital and to test both the association between initial nutritional diagnosis and the length of stay and the in-hospital variation in nutritional status.

METHODS:

Retrospective cohort study based on information entered in clinical records from University Hospital. The data were collected from a convenience sample of 91 cases among children aged one to 10 years admitted to the hospital in 2009. The data that characterize the sample are presented in a descriptive manner. Additionally, we performed a multivariate linear regression analysis adjusted for age and gender.

RESULTS:

Nutritional classification at baseline showed that 87.8% of the children had a normal weight and that 8.9% had excess weight. The linear regression models showed that the average weight loss z-score of the children with excess weight compared with the group with normal weight was −0.48 (p = 0.018) and that their length of stay was 2.37 days longer on average compared with that of the normal-weight group (p = 0.047).

CONCLUSIONS:

The length of stay and loss of weight at the hospital may be greater among children with excess weight than among children with normal weight.

Excess Weight; Pediatrics; Hospitalization

	Normal weight (N = 79)	Malnutrition (N = 3)	Excess weight (N = 8)	p
Age (years)	3.37 (2.58)	7.29 (3.45)	5.55 (3.04)	0.00
Gender ♂	50.6%	100%	87.5%	0.04
♀	49.4%	0	12.5%
Diagnosis at admission
Bronchopneumonia	43%	0	62.5%
Asthma	19%	33.3%	0
Skin diseases	10.1%	0	0
Varicella	5.1%	0	0
Appendicitis	1.3%	0	12.5%	0.31
Fractures	3.8%	0	0
Other	17.7%	66.7%	25%
Previous diagnosis
Bronchopneumonia	42.8%	0	100%
Asthma	42.8%	100%	0
Appendicitis	4.7%	0	0	0.69
Other	9.7%	0	0
Initial nutritional classification	87.8%	3.3%	8.9%	-
Final nutritional classification	88.4%	4.7%	6.9%	-
Initial W/A (z-score)	-0.12 (0.95)	-2.14 (1.52)	1.37 (0.69)	-
Final W/A (z-score)	-0.18 (0.94)	-2.13 (1.24)	1.19 (0.57)	-
Initial BMI (z-score)	-0.32 (0.90)	-2.35 (0.19)	2.36 (0.72)	-
Final BMI (z-score)	-0.25 (0.83)	-2.57 (0.75)	2.17 (0.72)	-
Δ weight (z-score)	0.04 (0.45)	-0.2 (0.87)	-0.38 (0.81)	0.06
Length of stay (days)	3.72 (2.61)	4.33 (3.21)	5.5 (6.23)	0.29
Use of oxygen
No	75.9%	66.7%	62.5%	0.67
Yes	24.1%	33.3%	37.5%
Length of oxygen use (days)	0.35 (0.80)	0.33 (0.57)	0.37 (0.51)	0.99
ICU	0	0	0	-

Hospital stay length (days)	Beta	95% CI	p
Malnutrition	1.70	-2.01 to 5.42	0.364
Excess weight	2.37	0.03 to 4.71	0.047
Age (months)	-0.29	-0.54 to -0.05	0.018
Gender (fem)	-0.12	-1.45 to 1.20	0.851

Weight variation (z-score)
Malnutrition	-0.35	-0.97 to 0.27	0.269
Excess weight	-0.48	-0.87 to -0.09	0.018
Age (months)	0.03	-0.01 to 0.07	0.156
Gender	0.03	-0.20 to 0.25	0.812

Faculdade de Medicina / USP Rua Dr Ovídio Pires de Campos, 225 - 6 and., 05403-010 São Paulo SP - Brazil, Tel.: (55 11) 2661-6235 - São Paulo - SP - Brazil
E-mail: clinics@hc.fm.usp.br

Acompanhe os números deste periódico no seu leitor de RSS

[1] AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Fernandes MT was responsible for planning, organization, analysis and manuscript writing. Ferraro AA was responsible for data analysis. Danti GV and Garcia DM were responsible for data collection.