What causes patients to be readmitted to hospital after community-acquired pneumonia?

Pneumonia is inflammation of the lungs, usually caused by an infection. Most people get better after a few weeks, but babies, older people, and people with heart or lung conditions are at risk of getting seriously ill and may need to go to hospital.

Community-acquired pneumonia is pneumonia which a person has caught in a community setting rather than a hospital or nursing home. It is relatively common for patients to be readmitted to hospital after community-acquired pneumonia.

Project aims

In this study, we will investigate what puts people at risk of being readmitted to hospital after community-acquired pneumonia.

We will use electronic health records to look at:

• Other health problems a patient has
• Medications they take
• How frail they are
• Their lifestyle habits

We will compare these for patients who were readmitted to hospital with those who were not.

What we hope to achieve

This study will identify a set of factors which put patients at risk of being readmitted to hospital after community-acquired pneumonia. We hope to use this set of risk factors to identify ways to prevent patients needing to be readmitted.