Sepsis is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with opioid-related hospitalizations, and opioid-related hospitalizations contribute disproportionately to sepsis-associated deaths among younger patients.

In addition to ongoing efforts to combat the opioid crisis, public health agencies should focus on raising awareness about sepsis among patients who use opioids and their providers.

The cohort included 6,715,286 hospitalizations; 375,479 (5.6%) had sepsis, 130,399 (1.9%) had opioid-related hospitalizations, and 8,764 (0.1%) had both.

Compared with sepsis patients without opioid-related hospitalizations (n = 366,715), sepsis patients with opioid-related hospitalizations (n = 8,764) were younger (mean 52.3 vs 66.9 yr) and healthier, had more bloodstream infections from Gram-positive and fungal pathogens, and had lower in-hospital mortality rate.

Of 1,803 patients with opioid-related hospitalizations who died in-hospital, 928 (51.5%) had sepsis.

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