Low-value Care

Sepsis hysteria: excess hype and unrealistic expectations

Abstract: “Sepsis kills over 52 000 every year—each death a preventable tragedy”, tweeted Matt Hancock, UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in March, 2019. Many other non-contextualised or fictitious claims regularly fill media pages and airwaves, creating a distorted picture of sepsis epidemiology and unrealistic expectations of outcomes. This hype has generated an unhealthy climate of fear and retribution in both the UK and the USA. Patients and families fear the so-called hidden killer and their confidence in health-care providers is undermined. Hospitals are criticised, penalised, and litigated against for failing to give patients antibiotics within 1 h of presumptive diagnosis. Doctors are reported for not giving antibiotics to patients they deem non-infected. It is thus worth summarising available data and providing a more balanced perspective. Without belittling the problem, patient care must be informed by facts.

Date Published: October 26, 2019

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The Lancet

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