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.