Postdischarge rehospitalization and in-hospital mortality among Taiwanese women with hip fracture.

OBJECTIVES: To explore the factors concerning postdischarge rehospitalization and in-hospital mortality among Taiwanese women older than 50 years with hip fracture. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The National Health Insurance database from 2000 to 2006 was used to identity relevant cases. Women inpatients aged over 50 years with new-onset hip fracture in 2003 were identified. We analyzed the factors affecting postdischarge rehospitalization and in-hospital mortality. RESULTS: In 2003, there were 9467 new-onset hip fracture inpatients claimed among Taiwanese women aged over 50 years. The 3-year cumulative rates of rehospitalization after discharge and in-hospital mortality rate were 11.01% (1043) and 7.10% (672), respectively. The factors determined to be related to rehospitalization were patient age, hospital level, length of stay of the initial hospitalization due to hip fracture, and Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) score. The factors determined to be related to in-hospital mortality were age, urbanization level of region where patients were insured, hospital level, length of stay of the initial hospitalization due to hip fracture, and CCI score. CONCLUSION: Characteristics of women aged over 50 years with hip fracture remain an important issue based on high rehospitalization and in-hospital mortality rates. We have identified related risk factors that may be helpful in treating hip fracture among this population segment.

Sleep Quality among Female Hospital Staff Nurses.

Purpose. To investigate sleep quality of hospital staff nurses, both by subjective questionnaire and objective measures. Methods. Female staff nurses at a regional teaching hospital in Northern Taiwan were recruited. The Chinese version of the pittsburgh sleep quality index (C-PSQI) was used to assess subjective sleep quality, and an electrocardiogram-based cardiopulmonary coupling (CPC) technique was used to analyze objective sleep stability. Work stress was assessed using questionnaire on medical worker's stress. Results. A total of 156 staff nurses completed the study. Among the staff nurses, 75.8% (117) had a PSQI score of ≥5 and 39.8% had an inadequate stable sleep ratio on subjective measures. Nurses with a high school or lower educational degree had a much higher risk of sleep disturbance when compared to nurses with a college or higher level degree. Conclusions. Both subjective and objective measures demonstrated that poor sleep quality is a common health problem among hospital staff nurses. More studies are warranted on this important issue to discover possible factors and therefore to develop a systemic strategy to cope with the problem.