ABSTRACT
Objectives To understand current status of the admission and treatment for the patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in central hospitals of Shanghai area,and to evaluate the severity of patients admitted to the hospital with CAP by the criteria set in the Guidelines for Diagnosis and Treatment for CAP developed by the Chinese Medical Association in 2006 and provide evidence for its popularization and application throughout the country.Methods Medical records of 137 patients with CAP admitted to the hospital from January 1,2005 to September 30,2006 were retrospectively studied and analyzed with SPSS 10.0 software.Chi-square test and ANOVA were used to evaluate the severity of the patients with CAP by the criteria set in the Guidelines and to correlate it with pneumonia severity index (PSI).Statistical analysis was performed for the difference between length of hospitalization,cost,length of intravenous use of antibiotics,the number of risk factors,and fatality during hospitalization between three groups of patients categorized based on the severity criteria in the Guidelines.Results There existed a good relationship between the criteria for severity of CAP by the Guidelines and PSI,with a Pearson's coefficient of correlation of 0.577,P