Perioperative medicine & outcomes
Excess mortality among non-COVID-19 surgical patients attributable to the exposure of French intensive and intermediate care units to the pandemic
Authors' conclusion
Significant excess mortality essentially occurred outside of the ICU/IMCU, suggesting that access of surgical patients to critical care was limited.
Study context
- Population
- All patients without COVID-19 who underwent surgery in France, 01/01/2019 to 31/12/2020
- Participants
- 1,870,515 patients · 655 hospitals
- Exposure
- Surgery in hospitals highly exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic (ICU/IMCU occupancy by COVID-19 patients) vs low-or-no exposure, 2020 vs 2019
- Outcome
- Standardized in-hospital mortality (inside or outside the ICU/IMCU)
Methodological detailsmultilevel models, triple-difference analysis
- Multilevel models
- Triple-difference analysis
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
In-hospital mortality, first semester 2020 · first semester of 2020
Adjusted ratio of ORs
1.56
95% CI 1.34–1.81
triple-difference
Adjusted ratio of ORs
1.27
95% CI 1.02–1.58
deaths inside the ICU/IMCU
Adjusted ratio of ORs
1.98
95% CI 1.57–2.5
deaths outside the ICU/IMCU
- Overall mortality
- 2%
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
| Outcome | Adjusted ratio of ORs (CI) |
|---|---|
| Learning effect, second vs first semester · second semester of 2020Significant learning effect | 0.76 (0.58–0.99) |
Standardized mortality increase vs 2019, highly exposed hospitals
- First semester 2020: increase
- 1% (95% CI 0.6-1.4%)
- Second semester 2020: increase 0.4% (0-1%)
Original publication
Excess mortality among non-COVID-19 surgical patients attributable to the exposure of French intensive and intermediate care units to the pandemic. Intensive Care Med. Published 25 February 2023. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →