Outcome between weekend/weekday hospital admissions in patients with peptic ulcer bleeding after initial endoscopic hemostasis

Reports on Weekend Effect with upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage were inconsistent. We aimed to determine if these findings hold true for a endoscopic center in Taiwan. We reviewed and analyzed the medical files of hospital admissions in patients with peptic ulcer bleeding who received initial endoscopic hemostasis from January 2009 and June 2013. They were divided into two groups according to whether the event occurred in weekend (group A) and weekday (group B) who received high-dose proton-pump inhibitor (PPI).
774 patients were enrolled (Weekend group, n=129; Weekday group, n=615). Our results showed that weekend group received earlier endoscopy treatment (12.20 vs. 16.68 hours, p=0.005), needed more blood transfusion (6.58 vs. 4.81 unit, p=0.02), more time shifting PPI from intravenous form to oral form (6.91 vs. 5.33 days, p=0.051), and prolonged hospital stay (17.36 vs. 13.05 days, p=0.005). The two groups were similar mortality rate (13.66% vs.11.63%, p=0.537), but a trend of significance was observed for patients in rebleeding rates (17.82% vs. 23.41%, p=0.167) and needing operations in weekend group (4.66 % vs. 2.11 %, p=0.093).
Patients admitted on the holiday needed less waiting time to receive endoscopic hemostasis, time to oral PPI, and hospital stay.