Abstract
Background and aims We describe the frequency of clinic visits and hospitalizations among rheumatic diseases seen at a tertiary Rheumatology centre in Manila, Philippines
Methods The University of Santo Tomas (UST) Hospital is a tertiary care centre, with specialised subspecialty training in Rheumatology. This study is derived from the patient census of UST Hospital Rheumatology Clinics from 2008 to 2015.
Results Mean age of the total 15 730 rheumatic disease patients (10 808, 69% females; 13 607, 86.5% adults; 2123, 13.5% paediatrics) was 47.51±21.55 (range <1–103). Most common rheumatic conditions were osteoarthritis (OA) (2828, 17.98%), gout/pseudogout (2378, 15.12%) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) (2152, 14%). There were a total 38 738 patient encounters including 34 267 outpatient clinic visits and 4471 hospitalizations. Of these, SLE consistently had highest frequency outpatient encounters (9534, 28%) averaging 1192/yr (range 1–16, median 7), and hospitalizations (1956, 43%) averaging 245/yr (range 1 to 9; median 4). Polyarthritides (4726, 14%) and OA (4346, 13%) had next most frequent outpatient visits; other connective tissue diseases (641, 14.37%) and gout/pseudogout (612, 13.72%) ranked next to SLE in hospitalisation frequency (Figure 1). Mean age of OA patients (2258, 79.84% female) was 62.49+12.37 (20–101) years, gout/pseudogout (487, 20% female) 55.08+15.24 (18-94) years, and SLE (2004, 93% female) 30.7+14.3 SD (range 2–84) years.
Number of patients and frequency of patient encounters per rheumatic disease at UST Hospital.
Conclusions This 8 year patient census in a tertiary care Rheumatology training centre illustrates the burden of illness in SLE, with consistently the highest frequency of clinic visits and hospitalizations, affecting relatively young individuals.
