Abstract

TAMARGO BARBEITO, Teddy Osmin; JIMENEZ PANEQUE, Rosa Eugenia; ALVAREZ RODRIGUEZ, José Manuel  and  TERRY VILLA, Oney. Usefulness of "the severity of illness index in the clinical services of Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital". Rev Cubana Salud Pública [online]. 2013, vol.39, n.1, pp. 4-18. ISSN 0864-3466.

Introduction: The severity of cases has become an important confounding factor in the comparative analyses of the hospital performance based on outcome indicators. Objective: To assess the usefulness, in terms of validity and reliability of "the severity of illness index of the clinical services of Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital" in a medical care service. Methods: A retrospective descriptive research was conducted in the rheumatology service of "Hermanos Ameijeiras" hospital. The source of information was the medical histories of 339 discharged patients. After applying the exclusion criteria, the sample was composed by 306 histories from which the necessary data were taken. The analyzed period was January to November, 2008. Results: Regarding the conceptual validity, it was observed that there might be a relationship between the condition of patient at discharge and the quantitative severity of illness index. The validity of the criterion showed a Kappa statistic of 0.47 (95 % CI, 0.3908-0.5431) and a correlation coefficient between the Horm's severity of illness index and the severity of illness index of the clinical services of Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital, the quantitative index of 0.66 (p<0,001). The inter-observer agreement yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.81 and a global weighted Kappa coefficient of 0.64. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.62. Conclusions: The severity index of the clinical services of "Hermanos Ameijeiras" hospital has acceptable validity and reliability, so it is useful to make an objective classification of the patient's severity.

Keywords : severity index; risk adjustment; validity; reliability.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )