The impact of concurrent diabetes mellitus and hypertension on hospital length of stay in patients with phlegmon: A cross-sectional study at rsud dr. soetomo surabaya

Phlegmon is an infection and cellulitis in the area under the tongue and chin caused by bacteria. The comorbid factors cause severe symptoms and increase the mortality rate. This study aims to determine the influence of comorbid factors such as diabetes mellitus (DM) and/or hypertension (HT) on the length of stay for patients diagnosed with floor-of-mouth phlegmon. This was a retrospective observational study collecting medical records of patients diagnosed with floor-of-mouth phlegmon with or without comorbidities of diabetes mellitus and/or hypertension recorded in the emergency room at Dr. Soetomo Hospital Surabaya. The data was collected using a cross-sectional approach involving patients with criteria for this study. For statistical analysis, the Kruskal-Wallis test was utilized. This study included 71 floor-of-mouth phlegmon patients' medical records. The mean length of stay was 8.73±4.8 days; the shortest course of treatment lasted 2 days, while the longest was 24 days. The relationship analysis between comorbidities and length of stay revealed a negative result (p-value 0.585). Patients with hypertension had an average length of stay of 9.75 days ± 5.12, which was longer than that of patients with DM comorbidity (7.10 days ± 3.54) and patients with combined DM and HT (7.75 days ± 4.83). Meanwhile, the average length of stay for patients without concurrent diseases was 9.14 days ±5.02. There was no relationship between the presence of comorbid diseases and the hospital length of stay, for the average length of stay for comorbid HT for patients diagnosed with the floor-of-mouth phlegmon was longer at 9.75 days ± 5.12.