How to handle mortality when investigating length of hospital stay and time to clinical stability.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Hospital length of stay (LOS) and time for a patient to reach clinical stability (TCS) have increasingly become important outcomes when investigating ways in which to combat Community Acquired Pneumonia (CAP). Difficulties arise when deciding how to handle in-hospital mortality. Ad-hoc approaches that are commonly used to handle time to event outcomes with mortality can give disparate results and provide conflicting conclusions based on the same data. To ensure compatibility among studies investigating these outcomes, this type of data should be handled in a consistent and appropriate fashion.

Methods

Using both simulated data and data from the international Community Acquired Pneumonia Organization (CAPO) database, we evaluate two ad-hoc approaches for handling m

SUBMITTER: Brock GN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3269825 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature