Culture positivity may correlate with long-term mortality in critically ill patients

BACKGROUND: The long-term outcome is currently a crucial issue in critical care, and we aim to address the association between culture positivity and long-term mortality in critically ill patients. METHODS: We used the 2015–2019 critical care database at Taichung Veterans General Hospital and Taiwanese nationwide death registration files. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression model was conducted to determine hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). RESULTS: We enrolled 4488 critically ill patients, and the overall mortality was 55.2%. The follow-up duration among survivors was 2.2 ± 1.3 years. We found that 52.6% (2362/4488) of critically ill patients had at least one positive culture during the admission, and the number of patients with positive culture in the blood, respiratory tract and urinary tract were 593, 1831 and 831, respectively. We identified that a positive culture from blood (aHR 1.233; 95% CI 1.104–1.378), respiratory tract (aHR 1.217; 95% CI 1.109–1.364) and urinary tract (aHR 1.230; 95% CI 1.109–1.364) correlated with an increased risk of long-term mortality after adjusting relevant covariates. CONCLUSIONS: Through linking two databases, we found that positive culture in the blood, respiratory tract and urinary tract during admission correlated with increased long-term overall mortality in critically ill patients. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12879-021-06898-8.