• Saqer M Althunayyan, Mohammed A Aljanoubi, Sultan M Alghadeer, Musab Z Alharthi, Raied N Alotaibi, Abdullah M Mubarak, and Abdulaziz M Almutary.
• From the Department of Trauma (Althunayyan, Alharthi); from the Department of Aviation and Marines (Aljanoubi); from the Department of Basic Sciences (Alotaibi, Mubarak), Prince Sultan College for EMS; from the Department of Clinical Pharmacy (Alghadeer), College of Pharmacy; and from the Emergency Department (Almutary), King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• Saudi Med J. 2021 Sep 1; 42 (9): 1002-1008.

ObjectivesTo assess the mortality benefits of timely antibiotic treatment of adults present at the emergency department with sepsis and compare one-hour administration and 3-hour administration starting from the time of triage.MethodsIn this retrospective study, we used secondary data analysis to investigate the utility of the National Early Warning Score as a predictor of mortality in sepsis patients between July 2018 and June 2019, at the Emergency Department, King Saud Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The patients were grouped into 2 based on the time interval from triage to the first antibiotic administration: the immediate group received antibiotics within the first hour, and the early group received antibiotics between one and 3 hours. The primary outcome of interest was in-hospital mortality.ResultsOut of 495 septic patients, only 292 patients (mean age of 56.3 ± 23.6 years) met the inclusion criteria. Two hundred fifty (85.6%) patients received antibiotics within one hour of triage (immediate), while 42 (14.4%) patients received antibiotics between one and 3 hours (early). Overall, in-hospital mortality was 31.8%. The mortality rates among patients who received early antibiotic was 31.6% and who received immediate antibiotic was 33.3%, with a p-value of 0.823.ConclusionOur findings did not support immediate antibiotic administration over early administration in patients with sepsis. However, further studies are recommended to investigate the effects of antibiotic timing on the outcome of severe sepsis patients.Copyright: © Saudi Medical Journal.

17 keywords...

hide…