Chest
Volume 124, Issue 3, September 2003, Pages 883-889
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Clinical Investigations
INFECTION
Early Mobilization of Patients Hospitalized With Community-Acquired Pneumonia

https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.124.3.883Get rights and content

Study objective:

To determine if early mobilization (EM) of hospitalized adults with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) reduces hospital length of stay.

Design:

Group randomized trial.

Setting:

Three Midwestern hospitals.

Participants:

Four hundred fifty-eight patients with CAP admitted to 17 general medical units between November 1997 and April 1998.

Intervention:

EM was defined as sitting out of bed or ambulating for at least 20 min during the first 24 h of hospitalization. Progressive mobilization occurred each subsequent day during hospitalization.

Measurements and results:

Intervention (n = 227) and usual-care patients (n = 231) were similar in age, gender, disease severity, door-to-drug delivery time, and IV-to-po switchover time. Hospital length of stay for EM vs usual care was significantly less (mean, 5.8 vs 6.9 days; adjusted absolute difference, 1.1 days; 95% confidence interval, 0.0 to 2.2 days). There were no differences in adverse events or other secondary outcomes between treatment groups.

Conclusions:

Like patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction and total knee replacements, EM of hospitalized patients with CAP reduces overall hospital length of stay and institutional resources without increasing the risk of adverse outcomes.

Section snippets

Protocol

The study population included patients with CAP admitted to three hospitals in St. Louis, MO from November 17, 1997, through April 30, 1998. Inclusion criteria were ≥ 18 years old, new infiltrate on chest radiograph (compared with old radiographs if available), and either one major criteria (cough, sputum production, or temperature > 37.8°C) or two minor criteria (pleuritic chest pain, dyspnea, altered mental status, pulmonary consolidation on examination, or leukocyte count > 12,000/μL).12,13

Patients

Four hundred fifty-eight of 711 patients (64%) hospitalized with CAP were included in the study. Patient exclusions were hospitalization within 2 weeks of the current hospital admission (n = 190), diagnosis with large-volume aspiration pneumonia (n = 31), admission or transfer to an ICU (n = 17), or assignment to a nonstudy hospital unit (n = 15). Of the 458 patients enrolled, 428 patients (93%) met the major criteria and 30 patients (7%) met the minor criteria for definitive or presumptive

Discussion

Our data suggest that EM of patients with CAP with movement out of bed for at least 20 min during the first 24 h of hospitalization and progressive daily mobilization can reduce hospital length of stay without increasing risk of adverse outcomes. Although this intervention has been shown to be effective for other disease entities,10,11 EM is not recommended in CAP care nor is it a therapeutic component of current CAP guideline recommendations.20,21 We did not observe a dose-response

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We thank the patients, families, nurses, and administrators at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Christian Hospital Northeast and Missouri Baptist Medical Center for their participation and support. We thank Vicki Ferris, Neice Green, Naomi Hampton, JoAnn Johnson, Krista Kuhn, Barb Quick, Cindy Spies and Lynn Williams for data collection; Debbie Geiselman, Judy Musick, and Connie Sinn for data management; Jennie Dulac for administrative support; and Jordana Stewart for manuscript preparation.

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    This project was funded by the Innovations for Healthcare Program of the Center for Healthcare Quality and Effectiveness, BJC Health System, St. Louis, MO.

    Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (e-mail: [email protected]).

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