Quality of life after sepsis and its association with mortality among sepsis survivors in South Korea: A population level cohort study.

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the incidence and effect of quality of life (QOL) change in Korean sepsis survivors. Using the National Health Insurance claim database of South Korea, we included adult sepsis survivors who were primarily diagnosed with sepsis between 2010 and 2018 and survived for more than 1 year after diagnosis. QOL change was defined using three criteria: decrease in annual income level, newly acquired disability, and increase in underlying comorbidities after sepsis. A total of 119,660 sepsis survivors were included in the final analysis. Overall, worsening QOL was observed in 92,096 (77.0%) of the survivors. Specifically, compared with that of before sepsis diagnosis, 9778 sepsis survivors (8.2%) had a decrease in annual income level, and 10,648 (8.9%) were newly registered as having a disability. Additionally, 74,528 (62.3%) and 79,142 (66.1%) sepsis survivors showed an increase in the Charlson and Elixhauser comorbidity indices, respectively. Among sepsis survivors, post-sepsis disability and increase in comorbidity indices were associated with a higher risk of 3-year all-cause mortality. We found that most sepsis survivors experienced a worsening in their QOL, which was associated with a higher risk of long-term mortality.