Study reveals risk factors for mortality in diabetic patients discharged from hospital

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Sep 2 2020

When patients are discharged from Hospital those with diabetes are at an increased risk of readmission and mortality, there are guidelines for discharging patients with diabetes to reduce these risks, however researchers from the Institute of Digital Healthcare at WMG, University of Warwick and Warwick Medical School have identified known risk factors for mortality in adult patients discharged from hospital with diabetes.

In the paper, 'A Systematic Review Considering Risk factors for Mortality of Patients Discharged from Hospital with a Diagnosis of Diabetes', published in the Journal of Diabetes and its Complications, researchers identified 35 studies that considered the risk factors relating to mortality for patients discharged from hospital with diabetes, they analyzed these studies and identified 48 significant risk factors for mortality.

The 48 risk factors are grouped into the following nine categories:

• Demographic
• Socioeconomic
• Lifestyle
• Patient medical factors
• Inpatient stay factors
• Medication related
• Laboratory results
• Glycaemic status

The most common risk factor is in the demographic category of age and the second most important factor is co-morbidity burden; this comes under the patient medical factors category, and means patients have more than one condition. We also identified BMI as a significant risk within the patient medical factors category, with those who were at the heavier end of the scales to be more at risk.

Thirty-Seven of the risk factors we identified from one research paper. This tell us that this research in general is still very early, and more studies are needed to identify the importance and possibly any other risk factors. This could decrease the mortality rate of diabetics discharged from hospitals in the future."

Professor Theo Arvanitis, Institute of Digital Healthcare at WMG, University of Warwick