Abstract

Introduction: The speed of service delivery in hospitals, especially emergency services is very important to reduce deaths and disabilities. The aim of this study was to investigate the mortality rate and its relationship with holidays in the hospital settings. Methods: A retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted in 2014 in Yazd, Iran. Emergency departments of two teaching hospitals were selected as a sample and required information was received from the nursing offices and HIS system of the two hospitals. Data analysis was done through the SPSS20 statistical software. We used descriptive statistics and and logistic regression for data analysis. Results: It showed that the age of patients and the number of emergency personnel among other variables had direct effects on mortality rate. In other words, the mortality rate had statistically significant relationship with the age of patients and the number of personnel. The findings indicated that an increase in the age of patients would lead to an increase of mortality rate to 1.1 times, while a decrease in the number of personnel would result in an increase of 0.89 in the mortality rate. Conclusion: If medical service delivery in both holidays and non-holidays is kept the same, the mortality and morbidity rates will decrease. This would be economical even if more wages are required to be paid to the personnel. Our findings suggest that health care providers should be concerned about the increased risk of death among patients who seek emergency care on holidays. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group