Strengths:
Our study had multiples strengths, including the use of HCUP KID data, which is a nationally representative sample of pediatric CF hospitalizations across geographic regions, hospital characteristics, and health insurance payers. This represents the breadth of hospital-level care provided to pediatric CF patients. The large sample size of the database allows adequate precision and power for our primary analyses. In addition, our use of multivariable regression analysis allowed for control of potential confounding factors including calendar year, sex, payer and hospital location/teaching status in studying the association between co-existing C. difficile diagnosis and outcomes.