Ryan Nipp on the Correlation Between Symptom Burden and Length of Hospital Stay

Ryan Nipp, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses the correlation between symptom burden and length of hospital stay for patients with cancer.

Nipp and colleagues conducted a study to answer the question, “Do symptoms predict the length of a hospital stay?” Patients rated nausea, pain, and fatigue on a 1 to 10 scale, and those who had 12 or more symptoms were also asked about anxiety and depression. It was found that nearly every symptom predicts for length of hospital stay. Those who had more symptoms stayed longer, and those who had anxiety/depression, on average, stayed a day longer than those who did not.