Presenting Symptoms Independently Predict Mortality in Septic Shock: Importance of a Previously Unmeasured Confounder

Study Conclusion: More than one third of patients with septic shock presented to the emergency department with vague symptoms that were not specific to infection. These patients had delayed antibiotic administration and higher risk of mortality even after controlling for demographics, illness acuity, and time-to-antibiotics in multivariate analysis. These findings suggest that the nature of presenting symptoms is an important component of sepsis clinical phenotyping and may be an important confounder in sepsis epidemiologic studies.

Citation for the Full-text Article

Filbin MR. Lynch J, Gillingham TD, Thorsen JE, Pasakarnis CL, Nepal S, Matsushima M, Rhee C, Heldt T, Reisner AT. Presenting symptoms independently predict mortality in septic shock: Importance of a previously unmeasured confounder. Critical Care Medicine. June 29, 2018. Published Online Ahead of Print. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/CCM.0000000000003260.