THE PROFILE OF LONG-TERM CARE PATIENTS IN AL-KHOBAR AND DAMMAM, SAUDI ARABIA

Objectives. To find out the profile of patients who stay more than 20 days in hospital in Al-Khobar and Al-Dammam. Methods. A cross sectional descriptive study was designed using a questionnaire completed by health care providers (physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, and social workers) of a random sample of 159 patients out of 318 patients identified as having stayed in the hospital for more than 20 days. Results. The mean length of stay of the patients were 358.6 +/- 776 days in government hospitals, and 1014.4 +/- 1018.3 days in private hospitals. Patients were seen as stable by their doctors, 66.7% in government hospitals and 93.9% in private hospitals (statistically significant different at p<0.001. Physicians agreed that about two thirds of the patients could have been managed at home. 57.2% of the patients had no active problems. Diseases of the nervous system and sense organs accounted for 67.9% of the diagnoses, followed by endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases (37.1%), diseases of the circulatory system (32.7%), and neoplasms (1.9%). Diabetes mellitus was the commonest illness making up 53.2% and 57.1% of the long-term patients in private and government hospitals respectively. The active problems of 25% and 23.5% of the patients was tracheostomy care and ventilation respectively. Conclusions. Long-term patients tended to stay longer in private hospitals than in government hospitals, had diseases related to the nervous and endocrine systems and nutritional metabolism, were in stable condition with no active problems, and could thus, be managed at home.