Abstract
BackgroundGuidelines for adults presenting to the emergency department (ED) with suspected sepsis recommend protocols and bundles that promote rapid and potentially intensive treatment, but give little consideration of how patient characteristics, such as age, functional status and comorbidities, might influence management. This study aimed to describe the characteristics, management and outcomes of adults attending the ED with suspected sepsis, and specifically describe the prevalence of comorbidities, functional impairment and escalations of care.MethodsWe undertook a single-centre retrospective observational study involving medical record review of a random sample of adults admitted to an ED between February 2018 and January 2019 with suspected sepsis. Descriptive statistics were used with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for key proportions.ResultsWe included 509 patients (median age 74 years), of whom 49.3% met the Sepsis-3 criteria. Less than half of the patients were living at home independently (42.5%) or could walk independently (41.5%), 19.3% were care home residents and 89.2% of patients had one or more comorbidity. 22% had a pre-existing do not attempt resuscitation order. 6.5% were referred to intensive care, and 34.3% of the 13.2% who died in-hospital had an escalation plan explicitly documented.ConclusionAdults with suspected sepsis have substantial functional limitations, comorbidities and treatment directives that should be considered in guidelines, especially recommendations for escalation of care.
Subject
Critical Care and Intensive Care Medicine,General Medicine,Emergency Medicine
Reference28 articles.
1. The Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock (Sepsis-3)
2. Assessment of Clinical Criteria for Sepsis
3. Maguire D , Dunn P , McKenna H . How hospital activity in the NHS in England has changed over time. The King’s Fund Report, 2016.
4. Oliver D , Foot C , Humphries R . Making our health and care systems fit for an ageing population. King’s Fund, 2014.
5. Department of Health . Long term conditions compendium of information. 3rd edn [online], 2012. Available: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-conditions-compendium-of-information-third-edition [Accessed 4 Dec 2018].
Cited by
6 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献