Volume 12, Number 5—May 2006
Dispatch
Costs of Surgical Site Infections That Appear after Hospital Discharge
Nicholas Graves*†
, Kate Halton*†, Merrilyn Curtis*, Shane Doidge*, David Lairson‡, Marylou McLaws§, and Michael Whitby*
, Kate Halton*†, Merrilyn Curtis*, Shane Doidge*, David Lairson‡, Marylou McLaws§, and Michael Whitby*Table 1
Demographic characteristics of included patients by surgical site infection (SSI)
| Characteristic | % (no.) |
|
|---|---|---|
| No SSI (n = 411) | SSI (n = 38) | |
| Age, y, mean (SD) | 63.58 (14.41) | 64.37 (13.72) |
| Socioeconomic score (1–100),* mean (SD) | 35.67 (19.17) | 40.37 (20.53) |
| Male | 48.66 (199) | 57.89 (22) |
| Recruiting hospital | ||
| 280-bed district hospital | 35.04 (144) | 47.37 (18) |
| 712-bed teaching hospital | 47.45 (195) | 36.84 (14) |
| 156-bed district hospital | 16.79 (69) | 15.79 (6) |
| Income | ||
| Currently in waged employment | 20.68 (85) | 31.58 (12) |
| <$50,000/y | 12.41 (51) | 23.68 (9) |
| >$50,000/y | 2.68 (11) | 5.26 (2) |
| Refused to answer | 5.35 (22) | 2.63 (1) |
| Education | ||
| Left school at <15 y | 60.83 (250) | 63.16 (24) |
| Left school at 16–18 y | 7.54 (31) | 13.16 (5) |
| Some form of higher education | 30.41 (125) | 23.68 (9) |
| Ethnicity | ||
| Caucasian | 96.11 (395) | 97.37 (37) |
| Aboriginal | 0.24 (1) | 0.00 (0) |
| Asian | 0.24 (1) | 0.00 (0) |
| Other | 2.43 (10) | 2.63 (1) |
| How patient was funded | ||
| Public | 91.97 (378) | 94.74 (36) |
| Intermediate | 6.81 (28) | 5.26 (2) |
| Private | 0.24 (1) | 0.00 (0) |
*See Jones and McMillan (14) for the scoring algorithm used.
