Impact of telemonitoring home care patients with heart failure or chronic lung disease from primary care on healthcare resource use (the TELBIL study randomised controlled trial)

Table 4 Alerts and mean values in the 5 days prior to cause-specific admissions ^I _, as compared to the entire follow-up period

	Value in the entire follow-up period	Value in the 5 days prior to hospitalisation	p value^II	% of alerts generated in the 5-day period prior to hospitalisation
				%
	mean (SD)	mean (SD)
SBP ^III, mmHg	119.8 (14.7)	121.2 (23)	0.634	38.9%
DBP ^III , mmHg	69.1 (6.7)	70.5 (11.3)	0.640	36.1%
Blood O ₂ saturation,%	93.1 (2.2)	91.0 (4.6)	0.003	74.3%
Heart-rate, bpm	77.8 (14.6)	84.2 (17.1)	0.003	27.8%
Respiratory-rate, bpm	26.3 (4.3)	26.0 (4.1)	0.703	69.4%
Body weight ^IV, kg	74.4 (23.1)	75.5 (23.2)	0.687	31%
Temperature, °C	35.9 (0.4)	35.5 (1)	0.059	27.8% ^V
Health status questionnaire ^VI				54.5%

SD: Standard deviation.
^I Considering cause-specific admissions to hospital for respiratory and heart-related problems.
^II Obtained using the t-test for dependent samples, comparing the overall mean for each parameter and the mean in the 5 days before the admissions.
^III SBP and DBP stand for systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively.
^IV Considering only patients for whom weight data were recorded. Alerts were generated when ≥2 kg were gained over a period of 3 days.
^V Only 3 (5.6%) of alerts were for body temperatures over 37°C, the rest being for values below the lower limit.
^VI Negative responses to any of the health status questionnaires (on the personal digital assistant) generated alerts.

ISSN: 1472-6963