Associations Between Obesity and Use for Pediatric Hospitalizations

Obesity is associated with poor outcomes for specific clinical groups of hospitalized children, but few data exist on outcomes of children with obesity on a larger scale during hospitalization. Therefore, we aimed to determine if use outcomes differ between hospitalized children with obesity and hospitalized children without obesity.

We performed a retrospective longitudinal cohort study of all children aged 2 to 19 years hospitalized at a single academic institution between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2016. BMI was calculated from documented height and weight; obesity was defined by using age- and sex-specific BMI percentile guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only All Patient Refined Diagnosis-Related Groups (APR-DRGs) with >100 admissions during the study period were included. Primary outcome measures included hospital length of stay, hospital cost, and 14-day readmission. Generalized linear and logistic models were used to determine adjusted differences for outcome measures between patients with and without obesity.

Of 78 756 included hospitalizations, obesity rates increased from 16.5% in 2009-2010 to 17.3% in 2015-2016 (P = .002). Only 6 (4.7%) of the 128 APR-DRGs examined were associated with increased use for patients with obesity: spinal procedures, tonsil and adenoid procedures, major respiratory procedures, peptic ulcer and gastritis, other musculoskeletal diagnoses, and other kidney and urinary tract diagnoses. There were no APR-DRGs with increased length of stay for children with obesity.

Obesity is associated with increased hospitalization cost and readmission rates for a minority of diagnosis groups. Some groups of hospitalized children with obesity may benefit from targeted interventions to reduce obesity-specific risks. Future research should be focused on disparities in other relevant clinical outcomes.