Do studies of the weekend effect really allow for differences in illness severity? An analysis of 14 years of stroke admissions | Zendy

David Barer | Zendy

Open Access

Do studies of the weekend effect really allow for differences in illness severity? An analysis of 14 years of stroke admissions

Author(s) -

David Barer

Publication year - 2016

Publication title -

age and ageing

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 2.014

H-Index - 143

eISSN - 1468-2834

pISSN - 0002-0729

DOI - 10.1093/ageing/afw173

Subject(s) - medicine , stroke (engine) , weekend effect , emergency medicine , gerontology , physical medicine and rehabilitation , medical emergency , mechanical engineering , engineering

An increased mortality rate among patients admitted to hospital at weekends has been found in many studies, and this ‘weekend effect’ has been used to justify major health service reorganisation. Most studies have used routine administrative data to adjust for potential confounding factors, and are unable to measure differences in illness severity due to the tendency of patients with milder symptoms to stay home at weekends. We set out to estimate the importance of such unmeasured ‘confounding by severity’, using data from a hospital stroke register.

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