Prolonged Length Of Hospital Stay And Associated Factors Among Adult Patients Admitted At A Surgical Ward In Selected Public Hospitals Arsi Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia, 2022.

BackgroundProlonged length of hospital stay is the most common indicator of poor quality of health care and inefficient utilization of hospital resources. Prolonged hospital stay associated with increased mortality, hospital-acquired infection, and unnecessary utilization of hospital bed and other resources. Predicting length of hospital stay facilitates resource designing and initiates quality improvement activities. However, data regarding the prolonged length of hospital stays, and associated factors were a scarce in Ethiopia. MethodsA hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 316 adult patients from December 1 to January 10, 2022. A consecutive sampling technique was used during sampling procedure. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data regarding sociodemographic factors, clinical factors, medication factors, and behavioral factors through interview, medical record review and by using check list. The data was entered into the epidata4.6 version and exported to SPSS Version25 for binary logistic regression analysis. To identify factors associated with outcome variable, candidate variables (p<0.25) were fitted to multivariable analysis, and those with P-values<0.05 were considered as factors associated with prolonged length of hospital stay. Odds ratio with corresponding 95% CI was used to indicate the strength of association of variables with prolonged length of hospital stay. ResultOne fourth (24.7%) of the study participants experienced a prolonged length of stay at surgical ward. The odd of a prolonged length of hospital stay was high among patients who had comorbid condition [AOR=4.59, at 95% CI= (2.46-8.56)], who developed surgical site infection [AOR=5.02 at 95% CI= 1.97-12.80)], and who developed hospital acquired pneumonia during hospital stay [AOR= 3.43 at 95% CI= (1.36-8.64)]. Conclusion and recommendationNear to quarter of the study participants experienced prolonged length of hospital stays. Comorbid condition, surgical site infection, and hospital acquired pneumonia were factors associated with prolonged length of hospital stay at surgical ward. Quality of care could be improved by adjusting surgical ward environment to prevent hospital acquired infection and focus on managing complication after surgery. Health care provider should be educating surgical patient about the risk of comorbidity on wound healing and early diagnosis and prevention of comorbid condition.