Impact of telemonitoring home care patients with heart failure or chronic lung disease from primary care on healthcare resource use (the TELBIL study randomised controlled trial)

Table 2 Hospital admissions and length of stay during the follow-up period in the intervention and control groups

	At 3 months			At 6 months			At 12 months
	IG	CG	p	IG	CG	p value^I	IG	CG	p value^I
	(n = 25)	(n = 29)	value^I	(n = 25)	(n = 28)		(n = 21)	(n = 22)
All-cause hospitalisations			0.744			0.887			0.250
mean (SD)	0.5 (0.8)	0.4 (0.6)		1.2 (1.7)	1 (1.3)		2.1 (2.8)	2.1 (1.5)
median (IQR)	0 (0–1)	0 (0–1)		0 (0–2)	1 (0–1)		1 (0–3)	2 (1–3)
All-cause hospitalisations categorised			0.907			0.506			0.033
0 admisssions, n (%)	16 (64%)	19 (65.5%)		13 (52%)	12(42.9%)		9 (42.9%)	3 (13.6%)
≥1 admisssions, n (%)	9 (36%)	10 (34.5%)		12 (48%)	16 (57.1%)		12 (57.1%)	19 (86.4%)
RR (95% CI)	1 (0.5 – 2.2)			0.8 (0.5 – 1.4)			0.7 (0.4 – 0.9)
Cause-specific hospitalisations ^II			0.895			0.732			0.328
mean (SD)	0.4 (0.7)	0.3 (0.6)		0.9 (1.3)	0.9 (1.3)		1.8 (2.6)	1.8 (1.6)
median (IQR)	0 (0–1)	0 (0–1)		0 (0–1)	0.5 (0–1)		1 (0–2)	1.5 (1–2)
Cause-specific hospitalisations categorised			0.973			0.465			0.159
0 admisssions, n (%)	18 (72%)	21 (72.4%)		15 (60%)	14 (50%)		9 (42.9%)	5 (22.7%)
≥1 admisssions, n (%)	7 (28%)	8 (27.6%)		10 (40%)	14 (50%)		12 (57.1%)	17 (77.3%)
RR (95% CI)	1 (0.4 – 2.4)			0.8 (0.4 – 1.5)			0.7 (0.5 – 1.1)
Length of stay (days/admission) ^III
all-cause hospitalisations, mean (SD)	8.7 (2.3)	11.2 (8.9)	0.954	8.2 (3.3)	8.2 (5.3)	0.477	9.0 (4.3)	10.7 (11.2)	0.891
cause-specific hospitalisations, mean (SD)	8.9 (2.4)	11.6 (9.1)	0.936	8.4 (3.2)	8.3 (5.0)	0.497	9.0 (4.5)	11.2 (11.8)	0.927

IG: intervention group; CG: control group; RR: relative risk of the occurrence of at least one admission; CI: Confidence interval.
The data are expressed as frequency (percentage) for categorical variables, and as mean and standard deviation (SD) and median and interquartile range (IQR) for continuous variables, unless otherwise stated.
^I Chi-square or Fisher’s exact tests were used to compare categorical variables and Student’s t-tests or non-parametric Wilcoxon tests to compare continuous variables at each time point.
^IIAdmissions to hospital for respiratory and heart-related problems.
^III Mean length of stay per admission (hospitalisation), considering only patients who were admitted at least once (12 in the IG and 19 in the CG).

ISSN: 1472-6963