Factors associated with length to recover adequate nutrition and length of stay in children hospitalized for bronchiolitis: a retrospective study.

Context: Inadequate feeding is a frequent reason for hospital referring in children with bronchiolitis and leads to prolonged hospitalization in 26% of the cases. The main objective was to identify the factors associated with the time to recover adequate nutrition in infants hospitalized for bronchiolitis. Method: We conducted a single-center retrospective study including infants less than 12 months hospitalized for bronchiolitis at Le Havre Hospital (France) between September 2018 and February 2021. A multivariate logistic regression model was computed to investigate the factors associated with (1) the time to recover adequate feeding (LOFR), and (2) the hospital length of stay (LOS). Results: 268 infants were included to assess the LOFR and 478 infants to assess the LOS. The median age was 3.2 months (1.6-5.4) and the sex ratio M/F was 11/20. The use of accessory muscles, nutritional support, and RR ≥ 70/min or < 30/min or apnea are associated (OR=1.5), from virtually no association (OR=1.0) to a significant positive association (OR=2.6) with the LOFR. Intense use of accessory muscles (OR=3.9; 95%CI 1.6-10.4) and “severe” clinical condition (OR=2.8; 95%CI 1.7-4. 8) at admission, O2 supplementation (OR=2.0; 95%CI 1.3-3.1) were significantly related to prolonged LOS in the multivariate analysis. Conclusion: The clinical severity on admission may be related to the LOFR, ranging from none to significant. Other known factors and the new clinical severity scale proposed by the latest French guidelines appeared to be related to the LOS in this work. Further studies are needed to highlight these factors.