Women were interviewed by the clinicians in local languages at admission in the reception, with the exception of emergency admissions, when they were interviewed in the labour room.
When compared with the USA (table 1), the rates of PQIs of the included Italian regions were generally lower or extremely lower, with the exception of the admissions for angina without procedures (PQI 13) and uncontrolled diabetes (PQI 14), which were higher than in the USA.
We measured BAC over a 12-month period from all blood samples taken from patients initially presenting to the RR, with the exception of direct admissions to specialists and transfers from other hospitals (before this BAC testing was not available on our hospital site).
In addition, to determine the need for further days of stay subsequent to the admission day -with the exception of the admission day itself-, we used a second AEP set comprising 27 criteria related with medical service rendered, nursing services and the patient's clinical condition.
All PIM-2 variables, with the exception of elective admission (P = 0.486) and bypass (P = 0.069) status, were statistically significant in the model.
Up to age 40, other less common outcomes did not increase significantly with maternal age in nulliparous or multiparous women with the exception of maternal admission for higher level care (table 2 and see online supplementary tables S6 and S7).
With the exception of season of admission, all of these variables were significantly associated with mortality by univariate analysis (P < 0.001).
In a multivariate logistic regression model (Table 2), with the exception of season of admission, each of these variables was independently associated with DSS after adjusting for the model covariates.
Her infancy and childhood were uneventful with exception of two hospital admissions due to fainting, for which no cause was detected, in the first year of life.
We considered admission for any cause to be a readmission, with the exception of a planned admission for a coronary artery bypass graft or percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty after an index admission for AMI (n = 4).
