Characterizing risk factors for hospitalization for psoriasis patients

Psoriasis is a chronic autoimmune disease with a large economic impact. Inpatient care is a significant expense, and about one-third of patients admitted for psoriasis are readmitted. Reducing hospitalizations and readmissions is an important goal for improving outcomes for psoriasis patients. The objective of this study is to characterize patients who are hospitalized for psoriasis, and differentiate features for patients with a single hospitalization from those who were hospitalized multiple times during the study period. Hospitalized psoriasis patients were identified from an in-patient database at a single academic institution. Differences between psoriasis patients with one hospitalization and those with multiple hospitalizations were characterized, as were differences between patients who were hospitalized primarily for psoriasis and those who were admitted primarily for other reasons. Patients who were primarily hospitalized for psoriasis had fewer comorbidities, shorter hospitalizations, and a lower death rate than those hospitalized for other reasons. Patients with multiple hospitalizations had more comorbidities and worse outcomes than patients with a single hospitalization. Patients who are hospitalized primarily for psoriasis are more likely to be pustular, and tend to have fewer comorbidities and better outcomes than patients with psoriasis who are hospitalized with psoriasis as a secondary diagnosis. One limitation of this study is the lack of data available to consistently quantify disease severity, such as percent of body surface area affected by psoriasis or Physician's Global Assessment score.