Does pain at hospital discharge predict transition from hospital to home and 12-month mortality among patients with heart failure?

Abstract

Introduction: Pain is present in 37%-68.9% of hospitalized patients with heart failure (HF), but little is known about how pain at discharge influences transition from hospital to home or 12-month mortality. The aims were to examine if pain at discharge predicts 1) return to home status and 2) 12-monthmortality among hospitalized patients with HF. Methods: In this prospective study, data were obtained from a dataset of 1,475 patients with HF hospitalized at 3 tertiary-care hospitals from 2009-2017. Pain at discharge (yes/no) was obtained from medical records using ICD-9 or ICD-10 codes. Return to home status (yes/no) and all-cause 12-month mortality were obtained from medical records. Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and χ2 were used to describe the sample. Logistic regression was computed to address the aims. Results: The sample was 59.5% women and 40.5% men. The mean age was 68.6 (SD 13.6) years. Race was 53.6% Black and 46.4% White. Of 1,475 patients, 239 (16.2%) had pain documented at discharge. Patients with pain documented at discharge were younger compared to patients without pain (p<.001). One hundred sixty-five of 239 patients (69.0%) with pain and 831 of1,236 patients (67.2%) without pain returned to home (χ2=0.297, p=.585). At 12 months after discharge, 20 of 239 patients (8.4%) with pain had died compared to 134 of 1,236 patients (10.8%) without pain (χ2=1.31, p=.252). In logistic regressions, pain at hospital discharge was not a statistically significant predictor of return to home status or 12-month mortality (Table 1). Conclusions: Over 30% of patients with HF did not return to home after hospitalization. Patients with HF have significant transitional care needs, including pain management. Future studies are needed to determine the phenotypes of pain among patients with HF, evaluate associations between pain at discharge and transitional care needs, and design innovative strategies to ameliorate pain.