Description

For persons with at least one overnight hospital stay in the past 12 months (HOSPNGHTD), HOSPNITEDX reports the number of nights these persons spent in the hospital during the past twelve months--excluding nights from hospital stays for deliveries.

HOSPNITEDX is similar to HOSPNITED, except that the latter variable also includes hospitalized nights connected with deliveries. Both variables are generated variables, which were constructed by NCHS from responses to questions that probed for specific information regarding hospitalization. See HOSPNGHTD, HOSPNUMD, and HOSPNITED for details on the process of gathering information and generating variables on overnight hospitalizations in the the past year.

As follow-up to the initial "hospital probe" questions on whether the person was an inpatient in a hospital during the past 12 months, interviewers asked about hospital delivery for each child less than 1 year old at the time of the interview. For each infant in the family, the interviewer asked, "Was -- born in a hospital?" If the answer was affirmative, the interviewer asked if this hospitalization was included in the hospitalizations already reported and corrected the responses on overnight hospitalizations, as needed, for both mother and baby.

Additional information collected on the "hospital page" of the survey, which was completed for every overnight hospitalization episode in the past year, supplied additional information that allowed NCHS to exclude deliveries from HOSPNITEDX. After collecting information on the date of hospital admission, interviewers asked, "How many nights was -- in the hospital?" and "For what condition did -- enter the hospital?" Subsequent prompts on the form directed, "For delivery ask: Was this a normal delivery? If 'No,' ask: What was the matter?" and "For newborn ask: Was the baby normal at birth? If 'No,' ask, What was the matter?" Checkboxes prompted interviewers to mark one of the following: 1 Normal delivery; 2 Normal at birth; 3 No condition; 4 Condition (with space to specify the condition). If a mother's hospitalization record was marked as "Normal delivery" or an infant's hospitalization record was marked "Normal at birth," then the nights as an inpatient reported on that hospitalization record were not counted among the total nights hospitalized reported in HOSPNITEDX (but they were included in HOSPNITED).

Comparability

HOSPNITEDX is comparable from 1982 through 1996.

While similar information was collected on hospitalizations and deliveries prior to 1982, the pre-1982 NHIS public use files do not include a variable on nights spent hospitalized excluding those for deliveries. After the redesigned version of the NHIS was fielded beginning in 1997, information was not collected on each individual hospitalization episode, so no variable similar to HOSPNITEDX exists for 1997 forward.

Universe

Availability

• 1982-1996

Weights

• 1982-1996 : PERWEIGHT