Background and purpose: Hip fractures are associated with high mortality, but the cause of this is still not entirely clear. We investigated the effect of surgical delay, weekends, holidays, and time of day admission on mortality in hip fracture patients.
Patients and methods: Using data from the Danish National Indicator Project, we identified 38,020 patients admitted from 2003 to 2010. Logistic regression analysis was used to study the association between sex, age, weekend or holiday admission, night-time admission, time to surgery, and ASA score on the one hand and mortality on the other.
Results: The risk of death in hospital increased with surgical delay (odds ratio (OR) = 1.3 per 24 h of delay), ASA score (OR (per point added) = 2.3), sex (OR for men 2.2), and age (OR (per 5 years) = 1.4). The mortality rate for patients admitted during weekends or public holidays, or at night, was similar to that found for those admitted during working days.
Interpretation: Minimizing surgical delay is the most important factor in reducing mortality in hip fracture patients.