Early Physical and Occupational Therapy and Discharge Disposition in Patients with Sepsis

Abstract

<h3>Research Objectives</h3> To explore whether implementing an early mobility protocol conducted by professionals from PT and or occupational therapy (OT) is associated with discharge location for a group of patients with sepsis, septic shock, or severe sepsis. <h3>Design</h3> A quasi-experimental study design was used with a non-equivalent post-test design. The data were collected for 3 months. <h3>Setting</h3> Mid-sized Midwestern hospital. <h3>Participants</h3> The population of the usual care group were 117 adult patients admitted to any unit with a diagnosis of sepsis, septic shock, or severe sepsis from February 1, 2019, through April 30, 2019. The early rehabilitation group were 96 patients admitted May 6, 2019 through July 31, 2019. <h3>Interventions</h3> The usual care group received PT and OT when an order was received from the hospital medicine provider. The experimental group were treated with PT and OT per an early rehabilitation protocol. <h3>Main Outcome Measures</h3> The dependent variables were number of PT and OT visits and discharge disposition. <h3>Results</h3> There was no statistically significant (p < 0.05) difference found between the groups for PT treatments (t(131) = -0.307, p = 0.760) nor for the OT treatments (t (104) = 0.925, p = 0.357). The mean number of PT and OT visits in each group were approximately the same as well (PT visits 3.86, SD = 3.83 vs. 4.05 visits, SD = 3.302; OT visits, 3.85, SD = 3.764 vs. 3.25, SD = 2.855; Table 2). The data demonstrated that the patients who received PT and OT were significantly more likely to be discharged to home/home health care (p = 0.029 for PT, p = 0.047 for OT) rather than to inpatient healthcare services (See Table 3). <h3>Conclusions</h3> This study demonstrates that the inclusion of PT and OT treatment in the care of patients with sepsis-related illness admitted to the hospital may influence their discharge disposition. The majority of the patients in this study were able to discharge to home. <h3>Author(s) Disclosures</h3> The author, Karen Clark, does not have any conflicts of interest in regards to this study.