Role of organisational factors on the ‘weekend effect’ in critically ill patients in Brazil: a retrospective cohort analysis

INTRODUCTION: Higher mortality for patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) during the weekends has been occasionally reported with conflicting results that could be related to organisational factors. We investigated the effects of ICU organisational and staffing patterns on the potential association between weekend admission and outcomes in critically ill patients. METHODS: We included 59 614 patients admitted to 78 ICUs participating during 2013. We defined ‘weekend admission’ as any ICU admission from Friday 19:00 until Monday 07:00. We assessed the association between weekend admission with hospital mortality using a mixed logistic regression model controlling for both patient-level (illness severity, age, comorbidities, performance status and admission type) and ICU-level (decrease in nurse/bed ratio on weekend, full-time intensivist coverage, use of checklists on weekends and number of institutional protocols) confounders. We performed secondary analyses in the subgroup of scheduled surgical admissions. RESULTS: A total of 41 894 patients (70.3%) were admitted on weekdays and 17 720 patients (29.7%) on weekends. In univariable analysis, weekend admitted patients had higher ICU (10.9% vs 9.0%, P<0.001) and hospital (16.5% vs 13.5%, P<0.001) mortality. After adjusting for confounders, weekend admission was not associated with higher hospital mortality (OR 1.05, 95% CI 0.99 to 1.12, P=0.095). However, a ‘weekend effect’ was still observed in scheduled surgical admissions, as well as in ICUs not using checklists during the weekends. For unscheduled admissions, no ‘weekend effect’ was observed regardless of ICU’s characteristics. For scheduled surgical admissions, a ‘weekend effect’ was present only in ICUs with a low number of implemented protocols and those with a reduction in the nurse/bed ratio and not applying checklists during weekends. CONCLUSIONS: ICU organisational factors, such as decreased nurse-to-patient ratio, absence of checklists and fewer standardised protocols, may explain, in part, increases in mortality in patients admitted to the ICU mortality on weekends.