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Table 3 Differences between patients with and without diagnostic discrepancy

From: Diagnostic error increases mortality and length of hospital stay in patients presenting through the emergency room

Measure

Total n = 755

Without diagnostic discrepancy n = 662 (87.68%)

With diagnostic discrepancy n = 93 (12.32%)

p $

Effect Size*

Type

Estimate

95% CI§

At presentation to the ER

 Age (years; mean [SD])

65.14 (18.4)

64.84 (18.68)

67.21 (16.17)

0.199

Cohen’s d

0.13

−0.10 – 0.35

 Female (n [%])

322 (42.65%)

278 (41.99%)

44 (47.31%)

0.360

Odds Ratio

1.23

0.79–1.89

 Non-specific chief complaint (n [%])

165 (21.85%)

143 (21.6%)

22 (23.66%)

0.809

Odds Ratio

0.95

0.62–1.41

Triage category (n [%])

 See immediately

43 (5.7%)

36 (5.44%)

7 (7.53%)

0.281

Kendall’s τ

0.04

−0.03 – 0.11

 See within 20 min

316 (41.85%)

275 (38.82%)

41 (44.09%)

 See within 120 min

367 (48.61%)

324 (48.94%)

43 (46.24%)

 See today

23 (3.05%)

21 (3.2%)

2 (2.15%)

 Non-urgent

6 (0.8%)

6 (0.91%)

0

 Via resuscitation bay (n [%])

81 (10.73%)

69 (10.42%)

12 (12.9%)

0.463

Odds Ratio

1.28

0.66–2.48

 Time at ER (hours; mean [SD])

6.54 (2.97)

6.5 (3.02)

6.87 (2.58)

0.202

Cohen’s d

0.13

−0.09 – 0.34

 Charlson comorbidity index (points; median [IQR])

4.28 (2.87)

4.27 (2.89)

4.38 (2.76)

0.711

Kendall’s τ

0.01

−0.04 – 0.07

 Number of active medications (median [IQR])

11.46 (8.94)

11.37 (8.86)

12.04 (9.54)

0.590

Kendall’s τ

0.02

−0.05 – 0.08

 Number of groups of medications (median [IQR])

3.03 (2.15)

3.02 (2.10)

3.21 (2.40)

0.547

Kendall’s τ

0.02

−0.05 – 0.09

Outcome

 Length of hospital stay (LOS) (days; mean [SD])

7.32(7.19)

6.90 (6.56)

10.29 (10.14)

0.002

Cohen’s d

0.47

0.26–0.70

 Mortality (n [%])

33 (4.37%)

25 (3.78%)

8 (8.60%)

0.038

Odds Ratio

2.40

1.05–5.50

  1. All percentages refer to number of patients within column
  2. $ For difference between patients with and without diagnostic discrepancy, two-sided p values are reported
  3. * Odds ratio (OR) for dichotomous variables; Kendall’s τ for ordinal variables, effect size d for metric variables;
  4. § CI is the Confidence Interval, for Kendall’s τ this was determined by bootstrapping with 2000 repetitions