Investigating incontinence in sub-acute patient care - A multilevel analysis
by
Janette Green
University of Wollongong
Coauthors: Irenie Smoker (Consultant Health Economist, former SNAP Coordinator, NSW Department of Health), Maria Theresa Ho (Health Services Researcher, Lecturer, University of NSW), Kate Moore (Urogynaecologist, Associate Professor, University of NSW)

The aim of this project was to compare continent and incontinent patients in sub-acute care with respect to their length of stay, the cost of their care and their clinical and demographic characteristics. The study was a retrospective analysis of data collected in 1996 for the development of the Australian National Sub-Acute and Non-Acute Patient Casemix Classification (AN-SNAP). The data set consisted of 9,418 episodes of care for Rehabilitation and Geriatric Evaluation and Management (GEM) patients. The treatment may have been provided in any one of four different settings - overnight (where the patient is admitted for one or more nights), same day admitted (where the patient is admitted and discharged on the same day), outpatient and community.

This presentation will include a descriptive analysis of the data in which differences between continent and incontinent patients are highlighted. Variables used in the comparison include age, impairment, motor function score at the beginning of the episode and cognitive function score at the beginning of the episode as well as length of episode of care and cost per day. Since the data had a hierarchical structure (patients within hospitals), multilevel analysis was used to model the daily cost of care for different subsets of the data. These models will be described and the interpretation of the results discussed.

Date received: April 5, 2002