Heart attack survival may depend partially on time it happens

Whether a patient survives a heart attack while in the hospital, may depend on when they are there.

Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) studied the medical charts of more than 86,000 adults, who had a heart attack while in the hospital.

They found those who suffered a heart attack at night or on the weekend, were less likely to survive.

If they did survive, the patients were also less likely to have a favorable neurological outcome.

Doctors believe biological differences in patients seen at night and on the weekend, may account for some of the survival data.

Researchers say more focus needs to paid on after-hours resuscitation processes.

The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Click for link to the study

More statistical information:

The researchers examined survival from cardiac arrest in hourly time segments, defining day/evening as 7:00 a.m. to 10:59 p.m., night as 11:00 p.m. to 6:59 a.m., and weekend as 11:00 p.m. on Friday to 6:59 a.m. on Monday.

The researchers found that rates of survival to discharge (14.7 percent vs. 19.8 percent), return of spontaneous circulation for longer than 20 minutes (44.7 percent vs. 51.1 percent), survival at 24 hours (28.9 percent vs. 35.4 percent), and favorable neurological outcomes (11.0 percent vs. 15.2 percent) were substantially lower during the night compared with day/evening.