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Hospital admission in children up to the age of 2 years

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European Journal of Pediatrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The description and analysis of the utilisation of medical services is of particular importance reflecting childhood morbidity. Therefore, our aim was to describe episode- and person-based rates of hospital admission in Germany, by focusing on the three most important clinically relevant categories, accident injuries, respiratory and digestive diseases in children up to the age of 2 years. The analysis was based on data from the LISA-study, a prospective population based birth cohort study including 3097 full-term infants. Information was collected by parent questionnaires and data was analysed concerning gender, region and social status. In the age-group 7–24 months, 14.5% of all children were at least once hospitalised, 2.5% for accident injuries, 3.0% for respiratory and 4.7% for digestive diseases. More boys than girls were admitted to hospital due to respiratory diseases (4.2% vs. 1.7%) and more children from East compared to West Germany due to digestive diseases (7.2% vs. 3.5%). In families with median or low level education more children were admitted for digestive diseases than with high (6.5% and 6.5% vs. 3.6%). The number of hospitalisation episodes per person showed that most children were hospitalised only once during the period from 7 to 24 months. In conclusion this analysis shows that hospital admission is common and not equally distributed concerning sex, parental education and region in German children. Physicians should pay special attention to these susceptive subgroups and differences in health related behaviour and in the distribution of health facilities have to be reduced. Additionally, multiple admissions play only a minor role concerning hospital admission in children up to the age of 2 years.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all of the families for their participation.

ES was responsible for data analysis, interpretation of data and manuscript preparation. ES and JH developed the design and analysis plan of this study. SS, JH and JL assisted in the interpretation of results and critical revision of the manuscript. OH, MB, BS, UK, AvB and JH were responsible for the data collection and critical revision of the manuscript.

Competing interests

None of the authors had any conflict of interest.

Funding

The LISA-study was supported by grants 01 EG 9732 and 01 EG 9705/2 from the Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Helmholtz Zentrum Munich, Center for Environment and Health, Institute of Epidemiology, Ingolstädter Landstrasse 1, 85764, Neuherberg, Germany

    Eva Schnabel, Stefanie Sausenthaler, H-Erich Wichmann & Joachim Heinrich

  2. Dr. von Haunersches Kinderspital, Children’s Hospital, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany

    Johannes Liese

  3. UFZ, Helmholtz Zentrum for Environmental Research, Department Human Exposure Research and Epidemiology, Leipzig, Germany

    Olf Herbarth

  4. Faculty of Medicine, Department Environmental Medicine and Hygiene, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Olf Herbarth

  5. Department of Pediatrics, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Michael Borte

  6. Municipal Hospital “St. Georg”, Leipzig Children’s Hospital, Leipzig, Germany

    Michael Borte

  7. Medical Practice for Pediatrics, Bahnhofstrasse 6, 53604, Bad Honnef, Germany

    Beate Schaaf

  8. Department of Epidemiology, IUF, Environmental Health Research Institute, Duesseldorf, Germany

    Ursula Krämer

  9. Department of Pediatrics, Marien-Hospital Wesel, Wesel, Germany

    Andrea von Berg

  10. Ludwig Maximilians University, Institute of Medical Data Management, Biometrics and Epidemiology, Chair of Epidemiology, Munich, Germany

    H-Erich Wichmann

Authors
  1. Eva Schnabel
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  2. Stefanie Sausenthaler
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  3. Johannes Liese
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  4. Olf Herbarth
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  5. Michael Borte
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  6. Beate Schaaf
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  7. Ursula Krämer
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  8. Andrea von Berg
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  9. H-Erich Wichmann
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  10. Joachim Heinrich
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Consortia

for the LISA-Study-Group

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eva Schnabel.

Appendix

Appendix

Summary of clinically relevant categories

ICD10 codes: examples of codes in each category (full list available from authors)

ICD10 code Condition

Injury accidents

S00–S09 Injuries to the head

S40–S49 Injuries to the shoulder and upper arm

S50–S69 Injuries to the elbow and forearm, Injuries to the wrist and hand

T20–T32 Burns and corrosions

T51–T78 Toxic effects of substances chiefly no medicinal as to source, other and unspecified effects of external causes

Respiratory diseases

J00–J06 Acute upper respiratory infections

J09–J18 Influenza and pneumonia

J20–J22 Other acute lower respiratory infections

J30–J39 Other diseases of upper respiratory tract

J40–J47 Chronic lower respiratory diseases

Digestive diseases

A00–A09 Intestinal infectious diseases

K00–K14 Diseases of oral cavity, salivary glands and jaws

K20–K31 Diseases of oesophagus, stomach and duodenum

K40–K46 Hernia

K50–K52 No infective enteritis and colitis

K55–K63 Other diseases of intestines

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Schnabel, E., Sausenthaler, S., Liese, J. et al. Hospital admission in children up to the age of 2 years. Eur J Pediatr 168, 925–931 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-008-0859-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-008-0859-y

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