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Objectives: To collect and summarise all current data from observational studies, generating evidence of the association between health literacy (HL) and the dietary intake of sugar, salt and fat, to analyse intervention studies on the promotion of an appropriate dietary intake of the above-mentioned nutrients and to ascertain whether HL moderates the efficacy of such intervention., Design: A systematic literature search of analytical observational studies on the association between HL and dietary intake of sugar, salt and fat was performed in Medline and Scopus databases. Intervention studies on the promotion of healthy nutrition that concerned the intake of sugar, salt and fat were also assessed., Results: Of the eight observational studies included in this review, five investigated dietary intake of sugar, one focused on salt, one assessed sugar and salt and one analysed the fat intake. The results of the five studies assessing sugar were mixed: three found an association between low levels of HL and a high sugar intake, one found this association only for boys and two found no evidence of any association. The two studies assessing salt and the one assessing fat found no evidence of any association with HL. One intervention study on the sugar intake concluded that HL was not a significant moderator of the intervention's effectiveness., Conclusion: No evidence of any association between HL and salt and fat intake emerged, while for sugar, the results are mixed. More work is needed to better understand the moderating effects of HL on the outcomes of health promotion interventions.

Objective: The aim was to clarify which pairs or clusters of diseases predict the hospital-related events and death in a population of patients with complex health care needs (PCHCN). Method: Subjects classified in 2012 as PCHCN in a local health unit by ACG® (Adjusted Clinical Groups) System were linked with hospital discharge records in 2013 to identify those who experienced any of a series of hospital admission events and death. Number of comorbidities, comorbidities dyads, and latent classes were used as exposure variable. Regression analyses were applied to examine the associations between dependent and exposure variables. Results: Besides the fact that larger number of chronic conditions is associated with higher odds of hospital admission or death, we showed that certain dyads and classes of diseases have a particularly strong association with these outcomes. Discussion: Unlike morbidity counts, analyzing morbidity clusters and dyads reveals which combinations of morbidities are associated with the highest hospitalization rates or death.

Background: Studies in several different countries and settings suggest that ambulatory care-sensitive conditions (ACSCs)-related hospitalizations could be associated more with socioeconomic variables than with the quality of primary healthcare services. The aim of the present study was to analyze the potential links between education levels or other social determinants and ACSC-related hospitalization rates., Methods: We analyzed a total of 467 504 records of ordinary discharges after acute hospitalization in 2015-16 for patients 20-74 years old residing in the Veneto Region. We calculated the prevention quality indicators (PQIs) developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Rate ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were estimated with a set of Poisson regressions to measure the relative risk by sociodemographic level., Results: Hospitalizations for ACSCs accounted for 3.9% of all hospital admissions (18 436 discharges), and the crude hospitalization rate for ACSCs among 20- to 74-year-olds was 26.6 per 10 000 inhabitants (95% CI, 25.8-27.4). For all conditions, we found a significant association with formal education. In the case of the overall composite PQI#90, e.g. poorly educated people (primary school or no schooling) were at significantly higher risk of hospitalization for ACSCs than the better educated (RR, 4.50; 95% CI, 4.13-4.91)., Conclusions: Currently available administrative data regarding ACSCs may be used effectively for reveal equity issues in the provision of health care. Our results indicate that an educational approach inside Primary Health Care could address the extra risk for preventable healthcare demands associated with poorly educated patients., (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.)

Background: Pulmonary diseases are a common and costly cause of 30-day readmissions. Few studies have focused on the difference in risk for rehospitalization between men and women in older patients. In this study we analyzed the association between sex and the risk of readmission in a cohort of patients admitted to the hospital for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbation and other major pulmonary diseases., Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study based on administrative data collected in the Veneto Region in 2016. We included 14,869 hospital admissions among residents aged ≥65 years for diagnosis related groups (DRGs) of the most common disorders of the respiratory system: bronchitis and asthma, pneumonia, pulmonary edema, respiratory failure, and COPD. Multilevel logistic regressions were performed to test the association between 30-day hospital readmission and sex, adjusting for confounding factors., Results: For bronchitis and asthma, male patients had significantly higher odds of 30-day readmission than female patients (adjusted odds ratio (aOR), 2.07; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.11-3.87). The odds of readmission for men were also significantly higher for pneumonia (aOR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.13-1.72), for pulmonary edema and respiratory failure (aOR, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.05-1.55), and for COPD (aOR, 1.34; 95% CI, 1.00-1.81)., Conclusions: This study found that male sex is a major risk factors for readmission in patients aged more than 65 years with a primary pulmonary diagnosis. More studies are needed to understand the underlying determinants of this phenomena and to provide targets for future interventions.

Background: Reporting adverse events (AE) with a bearing on patient safety is fundamentally important to the identification and mitigation of potential clinical risks., Objective: The aim of this study was to analyze the AE reporting systems adopted at a university hospital for the purpose of enhancing the learning potential afforded by these systems., Research Design: Retrospective cohort study, Methods: Data were collected from different information flows (reports of incidents and falls, patients' claims and complaints, and cases of hospital-acquired infection [HAI]) at an university hospital. A composite risk indicator was developed to combine the data from the different flows. Spearman's nonparametric test was applied to investigate the correlation between the AE rates and a Poisson regression analysis to verify the association among characteristics of the wards and AE rates., Subjects: Sixty-four wards at a University Hospital., Results: There was a marked variability among wards AE rates. Correlations emerged between patients' claims with complaints and the number of incidents reported. Falls were positively associated with average length of hospital stay, number of beds, patients' mean age, and type of ward, and they were negatively associated with the average Cost Weight of the Diagnosis-related group (DRG) of patients on a given ward. Claims and complaints were associated directly with the average DRG weight of a ward's patient admissions., Conclusions: This study attempted to learn something useful from an analysis of the mandatory (but often little used) data flows generated on adverse events occurring at an university hospital with a view to managing the associated clinical risk to patients.