Abstract
Introduction: Gait speed can be applied, predicting outcomes associated
with hospital stay such as length of stay and/or discharge. Despite
these studies that correlate gait speed with the aforementioned
outcomes, when we deal with cardiac surgery there is a gap. Objective:
Verify whether gait speed is associated with the risk of hospital
readmission in the postoperative period of coronary artery bypass
grafting. Methodology: This is a prospective cohort study. In the
preoperative period, all patients underwent a 10-meter gait speed test
and repeated at hospital discharge. After the repetition of the gait
speed test, patients were divided into two groups: slow and non-slow.
Those who were not discharged walked less than 1.0 m/s occupied the slow
group and those who were above 1.0 m/s were classified as not slow.
Patients were followed for six months to observe the primary outcome,
which was the need for hospital readmission. Results: The 6 months rate
of readmission was 58%(14/24;95%CI49%to80%) among slow walkers and
17% (6/36;95%CI13%to46%) among non-slow walkers(p=0.002).In
univariate analysis, gait speed, treated as a continuous variable, was
associated with the primary outcome (HR0.6;95%CI0.2to0.9), while age,
gender, BMI, MV and CPB time were not. In the multivariate model
including age, gender, BMI, MV and CPB time, gait speed remained the
only variable associated with readmission (multivariate
HR:0.5,95%CI0.1to0.7p=0.02). Conclusion: Our data suggest that gait
speed is associated with hospital readmission in patients undergoing to
coronary artery bypass grafting.