Risk of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest among sepsis survivors in Taiwan: analysis of a nationwide population-based cohort

Abstract

Objectives There is minimal literature examining the association of sepsis with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Using a large national database, we aimed to quantify the risk of OHCA among sepsis patients after hospital discharge.Design Population-based cohort study.Setting Nationwide sepsis cohort retrieved from the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan between 2000 and 2013.Participants We included 17 304 patients with sepsis. After hospital discharge, 144 patients developed OHCA within 30 days and 640 between days 31 and 365.Primary and secondary outcome measures The main outcomes were OHCA events following hospital discharge for sepsis. To evaluate the independent association between sepsis and OHCA after a sepsis hospitalisation, we constructed two non-sepsis comparison cohorts using risk set sampling and propensity score matching techniques (non-infection cohort, non-sepsis infection cohort). We plotted the daily number and daily risk of OHCA within 1 year of hospital discharge between sepsis and matched non-sepsis cohorts. We used Cox regression to evaluate the risk of early and late OHCA, comparing sepsis to non-sepsis patients.Results Compared with non-infected patients, sepsis patients had a higher rate of early (HR 1.66, 95% CI: 1.27 to 2.16) and late (HR 1.19, 95% CI: 1.06 to 1.33) OHCA events. This association was independent of age, sex or cardiovascular history. Compared with non-sepsis patients with infections, sepsis patients had a higher rate of both early (HR 1.28, 95% CI: 1.00 to 1.63) and late (HR 1.13, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.27) OHCA events, especially among patients with cardiovascular disease (OR 1.35, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.81).Conclusions Sepsis patients had increased risk of OHCA compared with matched non-sepsis controls, which lasted up to 1 year after hospital discharge.