Weekend Admission Does Not Confer an Increased Risk of Mortality in Septic Shock

Purpose: To investigate the impact of weekend admission on mortality for patients with septic shock. Material and Methods: Retrospective cohort study of adults in the 2017 to 2018 National Inpatient Sample coded as R65.21 (severe sepsis with septic shock) within the first 3 diagnosis codes according to the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases. Measurements and Main Results: After exclusions, 100,584 records were analyzed (73,966 weekday and 26,618 weekend admissions). Severity-of-illness was estimated using the Charlson-Deyo comorbidity index. Using weighted logistic regression adjusted for factors identified on univariate analysis as potentially significant, we found no higher odds of death for weekday compared to weekend admissions (OR 1.00, 95% CI 0.99-1.02, P = .84). There was a temporal improvement in septic shock outcomes with 2018 admissions having lower odds of death (OR 0.97, 95% CI 0.96-0.98, P < .001). There was no evidence for interaction between weekend admission and individual years of admission ( P = .17 and P = .05 for 2017 and 2018, respectively). However, weekend mortality did seem to vary by region in our interaction analysis with higher odds of death seen in the West (OR 1.08, 95% CI 1.05-1.11, P < .001). Conclusion: We found no evidence for higher mortality among patients admitted on weekends with septic shock.