Background:

Hyperglycemia during hospital stay is associated with adverse outcomes.

Aim:

To characterize the frequency of hyperglycemia in a tertiary hospital and to correlate it with length of hospital stay (LOS).

Material and Methods:

Review of medical records of hospitalized patients. Demographic data and laboratory data, previous diabetes mellitus (DM) history, current main diagnosis, unit of hospitalization and the two highest capillary blood glucose values from the analyzed period were recorded for each patient. LOS was obtained from electronic clinical records.

Results:

210 subjects, aged 60 ± 19 years (104 women) were included. 113 patients (54%) developed hyperglycemia ≥ 140 mg/L. Thirty one percent of these had a previous history of diabetes and 29% had stress hyperglycemia (SHG). Patients with a history of DM had a higher average blood glucose than those with SHG (238.9 and 178.2 mg/dL, respectively, p < 0.01) and a greater percentage of cases with a blood glucose above 180 mg/dL (72 and 40.0%, respectively, p < 0.01). Hospital LOS was significantly longer in patients with hyperglycemia ≥ 140 mg/dL as compared with those with normoglycemia (29.3 and 12.8 days, respectively, p < 0.01). This association remained significant when introduced in a linear regression analysis including diagnosis, decreased glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and hospitalization unit (p < 0.01).

Conclusions:

Hyperglycemia during hospitalization affects more than half of hospitalized patients and is associated with a longer length of stay.