The weekday effect on postoperative mortality in elective abdominal surgery: An observational study using propensity...

Area of Science:

• Surgery
• Health Services Research
• Clinical Outcomes

Background:

• The
• weekday effect
• controversially discussed regarding its impact on postoperative outcomes.
• Existing literature presents conflicting evidence on whether surgery timing affects patient results.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between the day of the week elective abdominal surgery is performed and key postoperative outcomes.
• To determine if performing surgery on "late" weekdays (closer to weekends/holidays) impacts mortality or hospital stay compared to "early" weekdays.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of 58,646 elective abdominal surgery patients from May 2003 to February 2018.
• Patients were divided into "early" and "late" weekday surgery groups, with "late" defined as within 2 days of a weekend or holiday.
• Inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) was used to balance covariates, comparing 30-day mortality and length of hospital stay.

Main Results:

• After IPTW, all 52 clinical covariates were comparable between the early and late weekday surgery groups.
• No significant difference was observed in 30-day mortality (0.19% vs. 0.18%, P = .82) or median length of hospital stay (5.0 days vs. 5.0 days, P = .16).

Conclusions:

• The study did not find evidence of a
• weekday effect
• on 30-day postoperative mortality or length of hospital stay for elective abdominal surgery.
• These findings suggest that surgery timing within the week does not significantly influence these specific outcomes.