Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)Soyiri, Ireneous N.Reidpath, DanielSarran, Christophe2023-03-292023-03-292011-11-02Soyiri, I.N., Reidpath, D.D. and Sarran, C. (2011) ‘Asthma length of stay in hospitals in london 2001–2006: demographic, diagnostic and temporal factors’, PLoS ONE. Edited by M. Idzko, 6(11), p. e27184. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0027184.1932-6203https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/13057https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0027184Daniel Reidpath - ORCID: 0000-0002-8796-0420 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8796-0420Asthma is a condition of significant public health concern associated with morbidity, mortality and healthcare utilisation. This study identifies key determinants of length of stay (LOS) associated with asthma-related hospital admissions in London, and further explores their effects on individuals. Subjects were primarily diagnosed and admitted for asthma in London between 1st January 2001 and 31st December 2006. All repeated admissions were treated uniquely as independent cases. Negative binomial regression was used to model the effect(s) of demographic, temporal and diagnostic factors on the LOS, taking into account the cluster effect of each patient's hospital attendance in London. The median and mean asthma LOS over the period of study were 2 and 3 days respectively. Admissions increased over the years from 8,308 (2001) to 10,554 (2006), but LOS consistently declined within the same period. Younger individuals were more likely to be admitted than the elderly, but the latter significantly had higher LOS (p<0.001). Respiratory related secondary diagnoses, age, and gender of the patient as well as day of the week and year of admission were important predictors of LOS. Asthma LOS can be predicted by socio-demographic factors, temporal and clinical factors using count models on hospital admission data. The procedure can be a useful tool for planning and resource allocation in health service provision.e27184en(c) 2011 Soyiri et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Article