Retrospective observational study on hospital readmission for status epilepticus in the United States over 2016

Describe hospital readmission for status epilepticus (SE) in the United States, and study potential risk factors for readmission.

This is a retrospective observational study using the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project's 2016 Nationwide Readmissions Database. We studied patients of all ages admitted to the hospital due to SE.

We included 32 327  patients admitted for SE in 2016. 8.4% of these patients were readmitted for SE at least one more time within 2016 (cross-sectional analysis). The incidence rate was 18 readmissions for SE per 1000 patient-months. Among the survivors of the index admission for SE who had at least 6 months of follow-up within this database (16 043  patients), the cumulative probability of having a readmission for SE at 1, 3, and 6 months from the index admission was approximately 3.5%, 7.5%, and 11%, respectively (time-to-event analysis). Patients with refractory epilepsy were more likely to have a readmission for SE compared to patients without refractory epilepsy (hazard ratio [HR] 1.49, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.23-1.82, adjusted P =.0006), and pediatric patients were more likely to have a readmission for SE compared to adult patients (HR 1.53, 95% CI 1.26-1.87, adjusted P = .0003) during 6-month follow-up.

Hospital readmissions for SE in the United States are frequent. Independent factors associated with readmission in this database were refractory epilepsy and pediatric age.