Risk of bleeding in hospitalized patients on anticoagulant therapy

Introduction: Bleeding is the most important complication of treatment with anticoagulant therapy. Although several studies have identified risk factors of bleeding in outpatients, no studies have been performed that evaluated prevalence and potential risk factors of bleeding in hospitalized patients treated with anticoagulant therapy.
Methods: The primary objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of bleeding in anticoagulant users during hospitalization. The secondary objective was to identify potential risk factors of bleeding in hospitalized patients on anticoagulant therapy. A prospective, observational cohort study was conducted in two Dutch hospitals. Adult patients hospitalized between October 2015 and October 2016 treated with anticoagulant therapy were included. Bleeding was defined as a composite endpoint of major bleeding and non-major bleeding according to the International Society on Thrombosis and Heamostasis (ISTH) criteria. Data analysis was performed by multivariate logistic regression.
Results: The prevalence of in-hospital bleeding in patients using anticoagulant therapy was 7.2%; 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 5.5–9.1 (65 out of 906 patients). Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that female gender (adjusted odds ratio [ORadj] 2.1; 95% CI 1.2–3.7), high-bleeding-risk surgical procedure (ORadj 5.3; 95% CI 2.7–10.2), low-bleeding-risk surgical procedure (ORadj 4.9; 95% CI 1.9–12.6), and non-surgical interventions (ORadj 6.2; 95% CI 3.0–12.6) were associated with bleeding events in hospitalized patients treated with anticoagulants.
Conclusions: The prevalence of bleeding in anticoagulant users during hospitalization was 7.2%. This study detected potential risk factors that can help to identify patients on anticoagulants who have an increased risk of bleeding during hospitalization.