Frailty predicts failure to discharge patients home from a subacute-care unit: a 3-year Italian experience

The primary purpose of Subacute Care Units (SCU) is to decongest acute hospital wards and facilitate the return of older patients to home.

We analyzed the clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients admitted to an Italian SCU, and we explored factors associated with discharge to locations other than home (outcome).

This retrospective observational cohort study was conducted at a medium-sized suburban hospital, enrolling all patients consecutively admitted to one SCU from October 2017 to February 2020. We collected demographics, cause of admission, comorbidities, cognition, Barthel Index (BI), nutritional status, Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), length of stay, and discharge destination. Delirium was screened with the 4AT score. We adopted a multivariable conditional logistic regression model to identify the factors associated with the outcome.

Frail subjects accounted for 58.6% of 406 patients (mean age 78.2 years, SD 11.6), while 61% were classified as functionally dependent. More than half of patients had relevant comorbidity, approximately 80% had a poor nutritional status, and 25% had pre-existing dementia. The overall prevalence of delirium was 14.5%. Most patients came from a hospital setting; recurrent reasons for admission were infections (70.5%) and heart failure (12.7%). Having a urinary bladder catheter at discharge, being overtly frail (CFS > 8), and low BI score were factors independently associated with not being discharged home.

The routine assessment of frailty, as expressed by the CFS, may help redirecting the patients eligible for SCU admission.