Association between hospitalization stay and diabetic foot: an analytical cross-sectional study in three Peruvian hospitals

Introduction Diabetic foot is one of the main complications of diabetes mellitus; however, in hospitals of provinces from Peru, the relationship of this condition with hospital stay has not been calculated. Objective To determine the association between hospitalization time and diabetic foot in three hospitals from Cusco, Peru. Methods A cross-sectional study of secondary data analysis was conducted. We analyzed the data of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus admitted to the internal medicine service between January and December 2016, in three tertiary hospitals in Cusco, Peru. Correlation coefficients and p-values were calculated using generalized linear models, with Gaussian family and identity function, adjusted by intervening variables. Values of p < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results Of the 153 patients, 14% (21) had a diabetic foot diagnosis, and their median age was 61 years (interquartile range 56 to 68). Those who had a diabetic foot had on average 20 hospitalization days. A strong association was found between a diabetic foot and the number of hospitalization days (17 days more, p = 0.003); adjusted by six variables. Those patients with a history of hypertension had more hospitalization days (10 days more, p = 0.011) and those admitted to a hospital of the Ministry of Health, had fewer hospitalization days (10 days less, p = 0.032). Conclusion The group of patients with diabetic foot had a longer hospitalization time. The longer hospitalization time could be due to complications of the disease or difficulties in management.