Abstract

Background: Femoral fractures are a major public health problem, given the negative impact they have on overall incidence, mortality, and related costs, and their implications for healthcare. The number of these fractures is expected to increase in most parts of the world, due to the increase in the aging population, with this demographic change requiring adjustments of both techniques and approaches to addressing the needs of older patients. Faster surgery and faster discharge from the hospital are very important for this age group, as the mortality rates of patients after discharge from the hospital have been shown to increase with the length of stay in some units. Objective: The evaluation of the characteristics of patients with femoral fractures related to the cost and duration of their hospitalization. Methods: The sample consisted of all patients who were treated in the orthopedic clinic of a Greek public hospital (January 2012–December 2018) with a diagnosis of femoral fracture (ICD-10 S72.0-S72.9). The statistical processing of the empirical research material was carried out with the software program SPSS 20.0, using the methods of Descriptive and Inductive Statistics. Results: The majority of patients (n = 1589) were over 66 years old, with women predominating (68.2%). 73.63% of patients underwent surgery, while the mean duration of hospitalization was 7.09 ± 5.14 days. The mean cost per hospitalization was 2450.08± 1188.17€. The duration of hospitalization was significantly correlated with gender, with that of men being longer (t (1267) = 1.911, p

Key words: femur fractures, cost, economic evaluation.