Abstract
Objective To quantify the hospital care for children born with a major congenital anomaly up to 10 years of age compared with children without a congenital anomaly.
Design, setting and patients 79 591 children with congenital anomalies and 2 021 772 children without congenital anomalies born 1995–2014 in six European countries in seven regions covered by congenital anomaly registries were linked to inpatient electronic health records up to their 10th birthday.
Main outcome measures Number of days in hospital and number of surgeries.
Results During the first year of life among the seven regions, a median of 2.4% (IQR: 2.3, 3.2) of children with a congenital anomaly accounted for 18% (14, 24) of days in hospital and 63% (62, 76) of surgeries. Over the first 10 years of life, the percentages were 17% (15, 20) of days in hospital and 20% (19, 22) of surgeries. Children with congenital anomalies spent 8.8 (7.5, 9.9) times longer in hospital during their first year of life than children without anomalies (18 days compared with 2 days) and 5 (4.1–6.1) times longer aged, 5–9 (0.5 vs 0.1 days). In the first year of life, children with gastrointestinal anomalies spent 40 times longer and those with severe heart anomalies 20 times longer in hospital reducing to over 5 times longer when aged 5–9.
Conclusions Children with a congenital anomaly consume a significant proportion of hospital care resources. Priority should be given to public health primary prevention measures to reduce the risk of congenital anomalies.
Design, setting and patients 79 591 children with congenital anomalies and 2 021 772 children without congenital anomalies born 1995–2014 in six European countries in seven regions covered by congenital anomaly registries were linked to inpatient electronic health records up to their 10th birthday.
Main outcome measures Number of days in hospital and number of surgeries.
Results During the first year of life among the seven regions, a median of 2.4% (IQR: 2.3, 3.2) of children with a congenital anomaly accounted for 18% (14, 24) of days in hospital and 63% (62, 76) of surgeries. Over the first 10 years of life, the percentages were 17% (15, 20) of days in hospital and 20% (19, 22) of surgeries. Children with congenital anomalies spent 8.8 (7.5, 9.9) times longer in hospital during their first year of life than children without anomalies (18 days compared with 2 days) and 5 (4.1–6.1) times longer aged, 5–9 (0.5 vs 0.1 days). In the first year of life, children with gastrointestinal anomalies spent 40 times longer and those with severe heart anomalies 20 times longer in hospital reducing to over 5 times longer when aged 5–9.
Conclusions Children with a congenital anomaly consume a significant proportion of hospital care resources. Priority should be given to public health primary prevention measures to reduce the risk of congenital anomalies.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | archdischild-2023-326557 |
Pages (from-to) | 402-408 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Archives of disease in childhood |
Volume | 109 |
Issue number | 5 |
Early online date | 19 Feb 2024 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published online - 19 Feb 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.
Data Access Statement
Data may be obtained from a third party andare not publicly available. We are legally not allowed to share the third-party
administrative data used in this study as it belongs to the data providers in each
of the regions i.e. the regional or national statistical organisations. The study team
had access to aggregate data only from each region i.e. the linked patient level data
remained in the local region. We encourage any interested parties to apply to the
EUROlinkCAT management team to assist them in obtaining approval from the data
providers in each region/country to use the aggregated data for an ap
Keywords
- Child Health Services
- Health services research
- Pregnancy
- Heart Defects, Congenital/epidemiology
- Parturition
- Europe/epidemiology
- Humans
- Female
- Registries
- Congenital Abnormalities/epidemiology
- Child
- Cohort Studies