Missing Narrative: Examining the Impact of Disability on Post-Operative Infectious Complications

More than 20% of the population in the United States suffers from a disability, yet the impact of disability on post-operative outcomes remains understudied. This analysis aims to characterize post-operative infectious complications in patients with disability. This was a retrospective review of the National Readmission Database (2019) among patients undergoing common general surgery procedures. As per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), disability was defined as severe hearing, visual, intellectual, or motor impairment/caregiver dependency. A propensity-matched analysis comparing patients with and without a disability was performed to compare outcomes, including post-operative septic shock, sepsis, bacteremia, pneumonia, catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI), urinary tract infection (UTI), catheter-associated blood stream infection, Clostridioides Difficile infection, and superficial, deep, and organ/space surgical site infections during index hospitalization. Patients were matched using age, gender, comorbidities, illness severity, income, neighborhood, insurance, elective procedure, and the hospital's bed size and type. A total of 710,548 patients were analysed, of whom 9,451(1.3%) had at least one disability. Motor disability was the most common (3,762; 40.5%), followed by visual, intellectual, and hearing impairment. Patients with disability were older (64 vs. 57 years; p < 0.001), more often insured under Medicare (65.2% vs. 37.3% p < 0.001) and had more medical comorbidities (Elixhauser comorbidity score ≥3; 69.2% vs. 41.9%; p < 0.001). After matching, 9,292 pairs were formed. Patients with a disability had a higher incidence of pneumonia (10.1% vs. 6.5%; p < 0.001), aspiration pneumonia (5.2% vs. 1.4%; p < 0.001), CAUTI (1.0% vs. 0.4%; p < 0.001), UTI (10.4% vs. 6.2%; p < 0.001), and overall infectious complications (21.8% vs. 14.5%; p < 0.001). Severe intellectual, hearing, visual, or motor impairments were associated with a higher incidence of infectious complications. Further investigation is needed to develop interventions to reduce disparities among this high-risk population.