Increasing thirty-day readmissions of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis in the United States: A national dilemma

The prevalence of Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) is on the rise worldwide. This rising prevalence is concerning as patients with CD and UC may frequently relapse leading to recurrent hospitalizations and increased healthcare utilization.To identify trends and adverse outcomes for 30 d readmissions for CD and UC.This was a retrospective, interrupted trends study involving all adult (≥ 18 years) 30 d readmissions of CD and UC from the National Readmission Database (NRD) between 2008 and 2018. Patients18 years, elective, and traumatic hospitalizations were excluded from this study. We identified hospitalization characteristics and readmission rates for each calendar year. Trends of inpatient mortality, mean length of hospital stay (LOS) and mean total hospital cost (THC) were calculated using a multivariate logistic trend analysis adjusting for age, gender, insurance status, comorbidity burden and hospital factors. Furthermore, trends between CD and UC readmissions were compared using regression of the interaction coefficient after adjusting for age and gender to determine relative trends between the two populations. StataTotal number of 30 d readmissions increased from 6202 in 2010 to 7672 in 2018 for CD and from 3272 in 2010 to 4234 in 2018 for UC. We noted increasing trends for 30-day all-cause readmission rate of CD from 14.9% in 2010 to 17.6% in 2018 (There was an increase in total number of 30 d readmissions for CD and UC with a trend towards increasing 30 d all-cause readmission rates.