One-year mortality after hip fracture surgery: urban-rural differences in the Colombian Andes

To determine urban-rural differences influencing mortality in patients with hip fracture in Colombian Andes Mountains over a 1-year period.

To identify the urban-rural differences of sociodemographic variables, fracture-related characteristics, and preoperative and postoperative clinical factors associated with 1-year mortality in patients over 60 years old who underwent hip fracture surgery in the Andes Mountains.

A total of 126 patients with a fragility hip fracture during 2019-2020 were admitted to a tertiary care hospital. They were evaluated preoperatively and followed up until discharge. Those who survived were contacted by telephone at 1, 3, and 12 months. Univariate, bivariate, and Kaplan-Meier analyses with survival curves were performed. Relative risk was calculated with a 95% confidence interval.

A total of 32.5% of the patients died within 1 year after surgery, with a significant difference between those who resided in rural areas (43.1%) and those who resided in urban areas (23.5%) (RR 1.70; 95% CI, 1.03 to 2.80, p = 0.036). In the multivariate analysis, anemia (hemoglobin level ≤ 9.0 g/dL during hospitalization) (RR 6.61; 95% CI, 1.49-29.37, p = 0.003), a blood transfusion requirement (RR 1.47; 95% CI, 1.07 to 2.01, p = 0.015), the type of fracture (subtrochanteric fracture (RR = 4.9, 95% CI = 1.418-16.943, p = 0.005)), and postoperative acute decompensation of chronic disease (RR 1.60; 95% CI, 1.01 to 2.53, p = 0.043) were found to be independent predictive factors of 1-year mortality after surgery.

There was a difference in 1-year mortality between patients from rural and urban areas. More studies must be conducted to determine whether rurality behaves as an independent risk factor or is related to other variables, such as the burden of comorbidities and in-hospital complications.