Data source
A population-based cohort study was performed from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2017 in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France (2.5 million inhabitants), which is served by 39 hospitals. We used data collected from the PMSI (Programme de Médicalisation des Systèmes d’Information) national hospital discharge database. This national database is made based on the mandatory notification of each hospital stay for all French public or private hospitals. All hospitalisation information is stored in a coded summary using the International Classification of the Diseases, tenth revision (ICD-10) and the French current procedural terminology for what occurred during the hospital stay. All patients are assigned a unique identification number, allowing the same individual to be followed over time [12].
Case definitions
We defined cases of « ARI » and « cataract surgery » using an ICD-10 algorithm based on the coding resume and the French current procedure terminology coded featuring the discharge summary. ARI included diagnosis codes for acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) (ICD-10 diagnosis codes provided in Additional file 1). Hospitalised patients who received at least one of these ICD-10 diagnosis codes as (1) the primary diagnosis in their discharge summary or (2) the secondary diagnosis with a primary diagnosis of respiratory failure were defined as having been hospitalised with ARI. The selection of hospital stays for « cataract surgery » was performed based on the codes for cataract surgery in discharge summaries. For each patient, the following data were extracted: age, sex, primary diagnosis, comorbidities (see Additional file 1 for ICD-10 diagnosis codes used) and hospital frailty risk score at admission (according to the ICD-10 codes from the two previous years of hospital discharge summaries and measured as a continuous quantitative score from 0 to 99 [13]). The procedures performed during the ICU stay and the hospitalisation characteristics were also recorded for the ARI patients.
Study population
We included all patients aged 80 years or older who were hospitalised at least one time between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2013 and had one of two clinical profiles: (1) patients admitted to the ICU for ARI and discharged home alive as the population of interest; (2) patients admitted for cataract surgery and discharged home as the control population to address our expectation of spontaneous complications and death attributable to the age of this population, we matched the sex, age, and comorbidities of the ARI patients with this control population selected from patients undergoing cataract surgery at the same time. We made the assumption that cataract surgery had an insignificant impact on mortality [13] and assumed that these control patients were an accurate representation of the physiological age-related prevalence of chronic diseases and mortality.
For each patient hospitalised with ARI in the ICU and discharged alive from the hospital, a corresponding comparison patient hospitalised for cataract surgery (1:1 ratio) was selected on the basis of the nearest propensity score using the one-to-one nearest neighbour method (with a caliper of 0.002 of the standard deviation of the propensity score on the logit scale [14]) with no replacement. Matching was performed based on preexisting conditions identified over a two-year period prior to the hospitalisation event (age, sex, frailty score, chronic heart diseases, chronic lung diseases and cancers). Hence, we used the long-term outcomes (mortality, healthcare utilization, frailty score evolution) as proxy measures of the burden of post-ICU effects for patients 80 years of age or older who were hospitalised for ARI. After matching, the balance of covariates between the two groups was assessed using the standardized differences expressed as a percentage overall and for each covariate using the L1 measure (for which a value of 0 indicates identical distributions between groups and 1 indicates complete imbalance) and the post-matching C-statistic (for which a standardized mean difference of 0.05 or less indicates a negligible difference between the means of the two groups and a perfect balance).
Data on the propensity-matched patients with “ARI” or “Cataract” patients were then collected for the 2-year period preceding the hospitalisation (2009-2010) and for the 2-year period following hospital discharge (2014-2015). Mortality was studied over a 2-year period (2014-2015). To accurately achieve this aim, the ICD-10 algorithm examined the 4-year period (2014-2017) to capture more information on the living or dead status (i.e., being alive in 2017 indicated an individual was alive at the end of 2015).
Outcomes
We furthermore studied the 2-year risk of mortality for patients 80 years or older who were discharged home alive after ICU stay for ARI compared with the expected mortality risk of this age group as determined from the controls. Mortality refers to mortality at hospital, which was defined as death during readmission during the follow-up period.
We studied healthcare utilization in the 2-year periods preceding and following the hospital stay of interest in the matched population. A patient’s care utilization was determined by the number of days spent as an inpatient during these periods (i.e., the percentage of inpatient days per quarter). The inpatient care included outpatient visits, ambulatory care at a hospital, hospital stays, home hospital stays and stays at rehabilitation facilities. Each patient acted as their own control between the two periods. We also assessed the evolution of the frailty score from the 2-year period before the hospital stay of interest through the 2-year period after this hospital stay.
Ethical approval
No nominative, sensitive or personal data on patients have been collected. Our study involves the reuse of already recorded and anonymized data. The study falls within the scope of the French Reference Methodology MR-005 according to 2016–41 law dated 26 January 2016 on the modernization of the French health system, which require neither information nor non-opposition of the included individuals. Access to linked anonymous file in the PMSI databases was approved by the French National Commission for Data Protection and Liberties
(CNIL MR-005 number 4116221019).
Statistical analyses
Continuous variables were compared using parametric or nonparametric methods, as appropriate, for paired (paired Student t-tests or Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank tests) or unpaired (Student t-tests or Mann-Whitney tests) data. Qualitative variables were also compared using parametric or nonparametric methods, as appropriate, for paired (McNemar tests or Fisher tests) or unpaired (X² tests or Fisher tests) data. Kaplan Meier curves were used to visualize the differences in survival between the ARI-ICU and control populations with log rank estimates; whether a patient was lost to follow-up, died or survived was specified every six months. Hazard ratios (HRs) and the 95% CIs for primary outcomes were computed using Cox modelling of the matched population. P values were 2-tailed, and values less than .05 were considered significant. Relative risks of death between the two matched groups were assessed at one, two and four years after hospitalisation. Statistical analyses were carried out using R software [15] version 3.1, and matching procedures were performed using the MatchIt package [16], version 2.4-21. Hazard ratios were determined using the survival package [17, 18].