The "Weekend Effect"

Everybody loves the weekend. It's the time where we can kick back, relax, and enjoy not being consumed by the weekday grind of work and whatever else. Oddly enough, though, Saturday and Sunday are two of the worst days for hospital treatment due to 'weekend effect'; a medical phenomenon related to the increased risk of dying from cancer and other conditions based on weekend visit to the hospital.

According to a Canadian study, published a little while back in the journal Stroke, people are also at a greater risk of dying from a stroke if it is suffered during the weekend.

Researchers reviewed the medical data of 26,676 patients admitted into 606 Canadian hospitals. Of those patients, 24.8 percent were admitted on Saturday or Sunday. After controlling for outside variable such as gender, age, pre-existing medical conditions (other than the stroke), it was revealed that stroke patients admitted on the weekend had a 14 percent higher risk of dying within seven days than those patients admitted on a weekday.

Admittance into a rural hospital, rather than an urban hospital, also seemed to increase the 'weekend effect' in stroke cases. The researchers suggested that disparities in resources, expertise and the sheer number of health care professionals working during the weekend (and also at urban hospitals versus rural hospitals) may explain the difference.

Interestingly, this study was conducted using data collected exclusively from Canadian hospitals. Being that Canada offers universal, government funded health care without any co-payments, access to insurance clearly does not play a part in the statistics.

Nevertheless, doctors urge that regardless of this 'weekend effect' phenomenon, patients suffering from a stroke should seek medical attention immediately and, if it happens to be a Saturday or Sunday, not wait until the following Monday.