{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0310090","title":"COVID-19’s impact on hospital stays, mortality, and readmissions for poverty-related diseases, noncommunicable diseases, and injury groups in Thailand","abstract":"AIMS: This study aims to compare the trends in the quality of hospital care for WHO's three disease groups pre-, during, and post-COVID-19 pandemic peak in Thailand. METHODS: The study utilized existing hospital admission data from the Thai Health Information Portal (THIP) database, covering the period from 2017 to 2022. We categorized WHO's three disease groups: poverty-related, noncommunicable, and injury groups using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 of initial admission of patients, and we analyzed three major outcomes: prolonged (≥ 90th percentile) length of stay (LOS), hospital mortality, and readmission pre-, during, and post-COVID-19 pandemic peak. Relative weight (RW) of hospital reimbursements was used as a surrogate measure of the severity of the diseases. RESULTS: The average prolonged LOS of patients with poverty disease pre-, during, and post-COVID-19 pandemic peak were 7.1%, 10.8%, 9.05%, respectively. Respective hospital mortality rates were 5.02%, 6.22%, 6.05% and readmission were 6.98/1,000, 6.16/1,000, 5.43/1,000, respectively. For non-communicable diseases, the respective proportions in the prolonged LOS were 9.0%, 9.12%, and 7.58%, with respective hospital mortality being 10.65%, 8.86%, 6.62%, and readmissions were 17.79/1,000, 13.94/1,000, 13.19/1,000, respectively. The respective prolonged LOS for injuries were 8.75%, 8.55%, 8.25%. Meanwhile, respective hospital mortality were 4.95%, 4.05%, 3.20%, and readmissions were 1.99/1,000, 1.60/1,000, 1.48/1,000, respectively. The RW analysis reveals diverse impacts on resource utilization and costs. Most poverty-related and noncommunicable diseases indicate increased resource requirements and associated costs, except for HIV/AIDS and diabetes mellitus, showing mixed trends. In injuries, road traffic accidents consistently decrease resource needs and costs, but suicide cases show mixed trends. CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19 had a more serious impact, especially prolonged LOS and hospital mortality for poverty-related diseases more than noncommunicable diseases and injuries.","journal":"PLoS ONE","year":2024,"id":452321,"datarank":0.16479184330021646,"base_score":1.0986122886681096,"endowment":1.0986122886681096,"self_citation_contribution":0.16479184330021646,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.16479184330021646,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":29.844511487584125,"corpus_rank":8690,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":2,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":true,"is_dataset_confidence":0.6312,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":757295,"name":"Kyaw Ko Ko Htet","orcid":"0000-0001-7853-7308","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1274096,"name":"Vorthunju Nakhonsri","orcid":"0000-0002-8201-5374","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1129930,"name":"Chumpol Ngamphiw","orcid":"0000-0002-8581-397X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1274097,"name":"Peerapat Khunkham","orcid":"0009-0004-7272-6449","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1274098,"name":"Sanya Vasoppakarn","orcid":"0009-0009-7087-7354","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1274099,"name":"Narumol Atthakul","orcid":"0009-0009-2132-4438","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1129929,"name":"Sissades Tongsima","orcid":"0000-0002-1491-1839","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1274552,"name":"Chantisa Keeratipusana","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1274100,"name":"Watcharapot Janpoung","orcid":"0009-0000-3353-1092","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":390432,"name":"Virasakdi Chongsuvivatwong","orcid":"0000-0002-9850-4463","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1122857,"name":"Satiti Palupi","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":36,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:02:50.407779Z","pmid":"39259738","pmcid":"PMC11389936","fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}