Patients who have a cardiac arrest while hospitalized have a significantly lower chance of survival if they suffer the arrest during the night or on the weekend. This is according to a study by Mary Ann Peberdy of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA and her colleagues.

The results published in The Journal Of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggest that patients, hospital staffing and response factors could meet to reduce the effectiveness of detecting and treating cardiac arrest at night.

Data was made up of 86,748 adults, in-hospital cardiac arrest episodes taking place in 507 medical and surgical hospitals from January 2000, to February 2007. Peberdy and colleagues evaluated survival rates for adults with in-hospital cardiac arrest. Findings showed that there were 58,593 in-hospital cardiac arrests occurring during the day and evening hours (15,110 on weekend) and 28,155 cases during the evening hours (7,790 on the weekends).

Principal findings of this study showed that survival to discharge following in-hospital cardiac arrest was lower when the arrest occurred during nights and weekends compared to day and evening times on weekdays.

Rates of return of spontaneous circulation for longer than 20 minutes were lower at night, 44.7% vs. 51.1%. Rates of survival at 24 hours were lower at night, 28.9% v s. 35.4% and rates of favorable neurological outcomes were lower at night, 11.0% vs. 15.2%.

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