Hospitalizations and transgender patients in the United States

Abstract

It is known that transgender people experience health inequalities. Disparities in hospital outcomes impacting transgender individuals have been inadequately explored. We conducted this retrospective cohort study using the National Inpatient Sample (01/2018–12/2019) to compare in‐hospital mortality and utilization variables between cisgender and transgender individuals using regression analyses. Approximately two‐thirds of hospitalizations for transgender patients (n = 10,245) were for psychiatric diagnoses. Compared to cisgender patients, there were no significant differences in adjusted means differences (aMD) in length of stay (LOS) (aMD = −0.29; p = .16) or total charges (aMD = −$486; p = .56). An additional 4870 transgender patients were admitted for medical diagnoses. Transgender and cisgender individuals had similar adjusted odds ratios (aOR) for in‐hospital mortality (aOR = 0.96; p = .88) and total hospital charges (aMD = −$3118; p = .21). However, transgender individuals had longer LOS (aMD = +0.46 days; confidence interval [CI]: 0.15–0.90; p = .04). When comparing mortality and resource utilization between cisgender and transgender individuals, differences were negligible.