Determinants of Length of Stay of Snakebite Victims in a Hospital. Statistical Modeling Approach

In snakebite envenoming research, occurrences of snakebite are predominantly in the poor, rural communities within the tropical and subtropical countries throughout the world. The most affected in health are the people who engage in agricultural or pastoral activities living in those areas. In recent times, there are increasing in cost and the burden of snakebite envenoming in health facilities. In this paper, we investigate factors that are associated with length of stay of hospitalized snakebite victims using a proportional odds model with maximum likelihood estimation. A secondary data is obtained from the Ghana Health Service particularly in the Upper West region of Ghana, and a purposive sampling adopted to obtain other information through administering questionnaire. Findings show that, gender, age, dependence status, marital status, body part of bite, first aid and treatment are significant determinants of length of stay. Furthermore, the study revealed that victims who were given first aid as a primary care stayed longer in the health facility compared to those not given first aid. This result is unexpected since first aid is generally administered purposely to reduce the complication as a result of the snakebite and hospital cost. In this study, the dominant first aid is the traditional medicine approach. Hence, further studies regarding how the people in those rural areas administer traditional medicines as first aid after snakebite envenoming is recommended.