The weekend effect in pelvic fractures and influence of weekday and weekend accident days: a retrospective study of the German Pelvic Registry

Treatment of pelvic fractures requires extensive human and material resources. The weekend is characterized by a reduced availability of these resources. In addition, weekend leisure activities lead to different injury patterns. The ‘weekend effect’, which describes these conditions, is controversially discussed in medicine. However, there is still a paucity of data, especially in traumatology and particularly in relation to pelvic injuries. The aim of this work is to assess the weekend effect on demographics, injury patterns and outcome in relation to the day of the accident. Demographic, clinical and operative parameters from the data of the German Pelvic Trauma Registry were retrospectively evaluated (n = 16,359). Differences between weekend and weekday accidents were statistically evaluated. Weekend accidents affect younger, more severely injured and less often female patients with fewer displaced fractures and a lower proportion of acetabular fractures. This results in less frequent operative treatment, but more emergency and early definitive surgery. In contrast to the numerous and significant differences in baseline conditions, the outcome in terms of quality of surgical treatment, morbidity and mortality showed only marginal and non-significant differences between weekend and weekday accidents. Weekend accidents differ from weekday accidents in their initial conditions. This does not lead to more frequent—yet more emergency and more early definitive surgeries. However, there are no differences in the quality of care or outcome according to the day of the accident.