Dehydration with Nondiarrheal Illnesses in Adults and Older Adults: Insights from Retrospective, Real-world,...

Nondiarrheal dehydration, though a physiologically common condition, remains underreported. There are no specific guidelines for its treatment, and physicians usually rely on the guidelines for diarrheal dehydration. Until now, no study has reported the epidemiology of dehydration in nondiarrheal conditions.

This was an electronic medical record (EMR)-based retrospective observational study. Anonymized and aggregated data of patients meeting the eligibility criteria from January 2017 to March 2023 were retrieved from the EMR database. Analysis was done to evaluate the prevalence of dehydration and associated conditions in adults and older adults.

The EMR platform had 2,24,90,146 patients, including 1,57,13,317 (69.87%) adults and 44,43,851 (19.76%) older adults (≥60 years). A total of 1,84,89,088 patients had nondiarrheal illnesses, of which 1,43,56,271 (77.65%) were adults and 41,32,817 (22.35%) were older adults. Dehydration was reported only for 4,917 (0.026%), of which 3,451 (70.19%) were adults without diabetes, and 666 (13.54%) were older adults without diabetes. The diabetic adults and older adults with dehydration accounted for 547 (0.0035%) and 253 (0.0057%), respectively.

The recorded prevalence of dehydration in patients with nondiarrheal illnesses is very low, highlighting the need for proactive screening for dehydration. There is a need to effectively diagnose nondiarrheal dehydration and highlight the significance of proactively documenting it in the prescriptions.