Public awareness of sepsis is still poor: we need to do more
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LETTER
Public awareness of sepsis is still poor: we need to do more Steve W. Kerrigan1,2,3* and Ignacio Martin‑Loeches3 © 2018 Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature and ESICM
Dear Editor, Sepsis is a major concern worldwide due to high morbidity, mortality and financial cost to health systems [1]. Globally, there is an estimated 30 million cases of sepsis each year, which results in more than 6 million deaths [2]. The lack of public awareness of sepsis and the serious consequences of delays in recognition and treatment are a major contributor to the alarming annual increase of 8–13% in sepsis cases over the last decade. With sepsis representing one of the highest causes of death in Ireland, the objective of this study was to assess awareness and perception of sepsis by the general public. This was a face-to-face survey of adults aged 16 years and older, conducted in January 2018. Prior to beginning the survey, informed consent was obtained from all participants in full compliance with the guidelines set out by the institutional review board of the European Society for Opinion & Market Research (Register J8812). The survey was performed by an independent national research agency (Behaviour and Attitudes; www.banda .ie) in their homes using Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface units. Current figures from the Irish central statistics office indicate that the national population in 2018 was 4,803,748. To obtain a confidence interval of 95% and a confidence level of 3%, a sample size of 1004 adults was defined as a target population. The 1004 adults were chosen randomly by the independent national research agency. Quotas were placed on the sample by gender, age, region and social class to ensure that it was fully representative of the Irish population aged 16 years and older. No drop-out or missing data were discovered. The survey instrument was an unprompted questionnaire *Correspondence: [email protected] 3 Irish Centre for Vascular Biology, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, 123 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland Full author information is available at the end of the article
which contained two questions modified from a previous international survey by Rubulotta et al. The first question was “Do you know what the following medical conditions are—Heart attack, Asthma, Breast Cancer or Sepsis”. Respondents who answered yes to sepsis were asked “In as much detail as possible, can you describe what sepsis is”. We considered the following definitions of sepsis to be correct answers: blood poisoning, blood infection, septic shock or septicaemia. Statistical analysis was carried out using Askia (Los Angeles, CA, USA). The survey population was gender-balanced, with 506 (50.4%) female and 498 (49.6%) male respondents. The under-24-year-olds displayed significantly lower awareness of sepsis than all other age groups (P
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