This study was intended to determine the socio-demography and clinical profile factors which influence the LOHS of patients with TIA who were admitted to receive medical care.
In this cross-sectional study, we obtained the patients’ medical records from the Health Information Department of UKM Medical Center. Socio-demography and clinical data were retrieved using a proforma. Only cases coded as ICD-10 G45.9 (TIA) as the primary diagnosis and hospitalized between 2019-2023 were analysed. Records with poor documentation and records of patients with premature discharge at own risk were excluded. We used descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation and Poisson regression tests to analyse the data. Level of significance was set as p0.05.
The patients’ mean age was 64.27 ± 13.31 years, with nearly 60.0% were males and of Chinese ethnicity. The most common comorbid conditions were primary hypertension (n=67, 69.1%) and type 2 diabetes mellitus with kidney complications (n=43, 44.3%), and the number of co-morbidities range between 3 and 14 (mean ±SD = 6.5±2.6). The median LOHS was 5.00 (IQR: 3.50) days, which were correlated with number of comorbidities (r = 0.333, p = 0.003) and the presence of hyperlipidemia (r=0.25, p = 0.026), right sided weakness (r=0.26, p = 0.03), and infection (r=0.31, p = 0.005). However, regression analysis revealed only the number of co-morbidity influenced the LOHS, in which for every additional comorbid condition, there is 1.13 times (95% CI, 1.089 to 1.189, p0.01) increase in the LOHS. Other socio-demography factors such as age, gender, marital status, and clinical profile variables such as having hypertension or diabetes were found to have no association with LOHS among patients in this study.
In our study, number of comorbidities is the sole predictor of length of hospital stay among the patients with TIA. This could be due to the need for more effort and time in managing each condition accompanying the TIA. Larger study is indicated to confirm this study findings.
Although the LOHS seems to be influenced only by the number of co-morbid conditions, attention should be given to other associated factors which potentially may increase the hospital stay duration and health care costs such as hyperlipidemia and weakness. Physiotherapists can play a role by providing therapeutic exercises to medically stable patients in day 1 of hospitalisation through a blanket referral system.
Length of stay
Clinical profiles
