Prospective Observational Study on Heart Rate Variability in Emergency Department Patients with Sepsis

Abstract

Objective To study the predictive value of heart rate variability in septic patients presented to the emergency department. Design Cross sectional study. Setting Emergency department. Methods Septic patients in the emergency department were recruited according to criteria. Heart rate variability data on time domain and frequency domain were generated from Holter records. Sequential Organ Failure Assessment, clinical progress and laboratory values were used to access the outcomes. Results Spectral power of total power (TP), low frequency (LF), very low frequency (VLF) and normalised low frequency (nLF) are shown to be significantly reduced in patients with sepsis who deteriorated (p=0.0070, 0.0032, 0.0005 and 0.0109 respectively). Cut off value 172.5 of VLF can identify all septic patients with potential deterioration. Conclusions Application of heart rate variability recording in emergency department is feasible and helpful in early identification of potentially deteriorating septic patients.