[Length of hospitalization of patients with ankle fracture]

Fractures of ankle are one of the most frequent interacticular fractures that require operative treatment. During the work, the influence of some particular factors (the length of the preoperative period, the complications of the operative period and the application of antibiotics) to the length of the postoperative intrahospital stay, are scrutinised.

The patients with ankle fracture treated by operation were comprised by the retrospective study in the Traumatologic department in the CHC Zemun in period of 2003 to 2006, and they were divided in three groups depending on the length of postoperative stay.

The period of time before the operation (Chi = 0.405, p < 0.01), the appearance of complications (Chi = 0.465, p < 0.01), as well as the length of the period of antibiotic application (Chi = 0.580, p < .01), significantly influence to the length of the postoperative intrahospital stay. The everage length of intrahospital stay for the patients with registered complications was 19 days, while for the patients without registered complications was 10 days. There is statistically significant difference in the length of intrahospital recovery, depending on various complications (logrank = 35.74; df = 5; p < 0.01).

It is necessary to treat these fractures as soon as possible, for this way of medical treatment results with less number of complications, shorter stay of patients in hospital and thereby reduced treatment costs.