The prevalence of anaemia in a district general hospital in the United Kingdom
Abstract
Aim Investigating the prevalence of hospital-acquired anaemia in a United Kingdom (UK) secondary care setting to describe the level of appropriate management prior to discharge back to primary care. Design and settings An observational study of 13 medical and surgical wards in a UK district general hospital. Method Single-day examination of notes, blood results and drug charts, with a 30-day follow up, using pre-set definitions of anaemia and exclusion criteria. Results Two hundred and sixty-seven patients were included. Of them, 52% were anaemic on admission, 62.2% were anaemic on the study day, 16% had hospital-acquired anaemia and 49%-82% had no biochemical indices checked during the admission or in the last 12 months. Also, 53% of anaemic patients are being discharged without appropriate treatment, with over a third being under-investigated. Conclusion The prevalence of anaemia in a UK district general hospital is high. Causes of anaemia are complex, posing a potentially modifiable risk factor for falls, readmission and mortality.Citation
Hamid, M., Naz, A., Alawattegama, L.H. and Steed, H. (2021) The Prevalence of Anaemia in a District General Hospital in the United Kingdom. Cureus 13(5): e15086. doi:10.7759/cureus.15086Publisher
Cureus, Inc.Journal
CureusPubMed ID
34155456 (pubmed)Type
Journal articleLanguage
enDescription
© 2021 The Authors. Published by Cureus, Inc. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: doi:10.7759/cureus.15086ISSN
2168-8184EISSN
2168-8184ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.7759/cureus.15086
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Licence for published version: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
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