Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Early antibiotics reduce mortality in patients with severe sepsis and septic shock. Recent work demonstrated that women experience greater delays to antibiotic administration, but it is unknown if this relationship remains after adjusting for factors such as source of infection. ⋯ Women experience longer delays to initial antibiotics among patients with severe sepsis or septic shock, even after adjusting for infectious source. Pneumonia was associated with shorter times to antibiotic administration. Future research is necessary to investigate contributors to delayed antibiotic administration in women.
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Mental illness is a growing, and largely unaddressed, problem for the population and for emergency department (ED) patients in particular. Extensive literature outlines sex and gender differences in mental illness' epidemiology and risk and protective factors. ⋯ Our consensus group used the nominal group technique to outline major gaps in knowledge and research priorities for these areas, including the influence of violence and other risk factors on the course of mental illness for ED patients. Our consensus group urges the pursuit of this research in general and conscious use of a gender lens when conducting, analyzing, and authoring future ED-based investigations of mental illness.
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Emergency physicians are confronted daily with the care of traumatically injured patients. A considerable proportion of blunt trauma cases are due to motor vehicle crashes. While men have historically been overrepresented in crash-related injuries and deaths, unfavorable trends for women in alcohol-impaired driving crashes have emerged. This extended commentary with in-depth review presents an examination of the evolving role of sex and gender in alcohol-impaired driving and its outcomes.