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Table 1 Participant characteristics for suspected infection events by sepsis identification method (N = 2217)

From: Agreement of claims-based methods for identifying sepsis with clinical criteria in the REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) cohort

Characteristic

No Infection as Primary Reason / No Sepsis

Infection as Primary Reason / No Sepsis

Claims-based ICD-9 Methods

Abstracted Clinical Criteria

Medicare-Imp/Exp

Medicare- CMS

REGARDS-SOFA

REGARDS-qSOFA

REGARDS-EHR

Total N

N = 834

N = 557

N = 468

N = 249

N = 541

N = 185

N = 331

Age (yrs) (Mean/SD)

77.1 (6.6)

76.1 (6.2)

78.4 (6.3)

78.0 (6.4)

78.3 (6.8)

77.8 (6.5)

78.0 (6.5)

Gender (%)

 Male

50.5

46.3

60.7

59.8

66.9

66.0

66.5

 Female

49.5

53.7

39.3

40.2

33.1

34.1

33.5

Race (%)

 White

76.4

79.2

78.4

74.3

77.8

81.1

75.8

 Black

23.6

20.8

21.6

25.7

22.2

18.9

24.2

Education (%)*

  < High School

12.8

15.1

16.3

14.1

15.2

17.3

16.9

 High School

27.7

26.8

29.3

31.3

29.2

31.4

28.7

 Some College

27.3

29.8

26.8

29.3

28.1

31.4

27.2

 College or More

32.1

28.4

27.6

25.3

27.5

20.0

27.2

Income (%)

  < $20 k

19.7

19.4

22.0

21.3

19.2

19.5

17.2

 $20-$34 k

28.4

29.6

29.1

30.5

28.7

30.3

27.5

 $35-$74 k

31.8

29.1

32.1

30.1

33.6

27.6

35.4

  ≥ $75 k

6.7

7.9

6.8

4.8

7.2

7.0

8.5

Not Available

13.4

14.0

10.0

13.3

11.3

15.7

11.5

Smoking (%)**

 Never

38.3

43.4

33.0

37.0

35.9

29.4

33.3

 Past

51.4

48.7

56.5

52.2

53.7

54.4

55.2

 Current

10.2

7.9

10.5

10.8

10.4

16.3

11.5

Alcohol Use (%)

 None

64.7

69.5

68.0

Supp

69.3

Supp

71.8

 Moderate

31.4

27.8

28.1

26.0

27.3

27.9

23.9

 Heavy

3.9

2.8

3.9

N < 11(Supp)

3.4

N < 11(Supp)

4.3

Comorbidities (%)

 Atrial Fibrillation

15.5

13.6

17.1

20.1

17.7

15.7

17.8

 Lung Disease

18.4

16.9

25.0

20.5

19.2

20.0

22.1

 Chronic Kidney Disease‡

23.3

20.5

39.7

43.8

43.6

36.2

53.5

 Stroke

11.3

9.5

15.4

16.9

11.8

14.1

12.1

 Myocardial Infarction

19.4

22.4

26.7

26.1

26.8

27.6

27.8

 Hypertension

63.2

63.0

68.8

72.3

71.0

68.1

71.3

 Dyslipidemia

62.0

63.4

64.3

68.7

69.3

71.4

71.3

 Diabetes

23.0

24.6

34.0

36.1

35.3

36.2

39.3

 Obesity

50.5

56.6

52.4

54.2

53.4

55.7

55.3

Comorbidities (Mean/SD)

2.9 (1.5)

2.9 (1.5)

3.4 (1.5)

3.6 (1.5)

3.5 (1.6)

3.4 (1.4)

3.7 (1.5)

Risk Score (%)

 Low (0–7 Points)

22.7

26.0

9.6

6.8

12.4

13.0

7.6

 Middle (8–12 Points)

36.0

32.1

31.6

34.5

27.0

28.1

25.7

 High (13–32 Points)

41.4

41.8

58.8

58.6

60.6

58.9

66.8

  1. Total N = 2217 adjudicated hospitalizations. Identification methods not mutually exclusive, events can belong to multiple groups. Implicit/Explicit ICD-9 sepsis defined based on taxonomies of infection and organ dysfunction codes proposed by Angus, et al. CMS ICD-9 sepsis defined based on list of codes used in the CMS SEP-1 measure. REGARDS-EHR defined as infection event meeting modified EHR criteria proposed by Rhee, et al. REGARDS-SOFA defined as infection event with ≥2 SOFA points. REGARDS-qSOFA defined as infection event meeting ≥2 qSOFA criteria. *1 missing. **6 missing. †38 missing. ‡Chronic kidney disease defined using creatinine values and the CKD-EPI eq. N < 11(Supp) indicates a cell size less than 11, which is suppressed per our data use agreement. SOFA = sepsis-related organ failure assessment; qSOFA = “quick” sepsis-related organ failure assessment; EHR = electronic health record. SD = standard deviation; CMS = Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; ICD-9 = International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision