| Summary: | Background: Several community studies have reported a relationship between a low serum albumin level and increased risk of hospital death, nosocomial infection, and length of stay. But this kind of study is still lacking in Indonesia.
Objective: To assess the relationship between admission serum albumin levels with length of stay and recovery rate among adult hospitalized patients.
Method: This cohort study was done in 2002. Subjects of this study were adults, inpatient of internal and neurological departments of Dr.Sardjito, Dr. M. Jamil and Sanglah hospitals. Serum albumin level, total lymphocyte count (TLC), and hemoglobin from each subject were collected at the admission. Energy intake of each subject was obtained using visual Comstock method. Information of length of stay and recovery status at discharge was obtained from medical records.
Result: On average the length of stay (LOS) in patients with normal serum albumin was 9.8 days. In patients with low serum albumin the LOS was 2 days longer (p
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