Enhancing Sepsis prognosis: Integrating social determinants and demographic variables into a comprehensive model for critically ill patients

Background: The Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score monitors organ failure and defines sepsis but may not fully capture factors influencing sepsis mortality. Socioeconomic and demographic impacts on sepsis outcomes have been highlighted recently. Objective: To evaluate the prognostic value of SOFA scores against demographic and social health determinants for predicting sepsis mortality in critically ill patients, and to assess if a combined model increases predictive accuracy. Methods: The study utilized retrospective data from the MIMIC-IV database and prospective external validation from the Penn State Health cohort. A Random Forest model incorporating SOFA scores, demographic/social data, and the Charlson Comorbidity Index was trained and validated. Findings: In the MIMIC-IV dataset of 32,970 sepsis patients, 6,824 (20.7%) died within 30 days. A model including demographic, socioeconomic, and comorbidity data with SOFA scores improved predictive accuracy beyond SOFA scores alone. Day 2 SOFA, age, weight, and comorbidities were significant predictors. External validation showed consistent performance, highlighting the importance of delta SOFA between days 1 and 3. Conclusion: Adding patient-specific demographic and socioeconomic information to clinical metrics significantly improves sepsis mortality prediction. This suggests a more comprehensive, multidimensional prognostic approach is needed for accurate sepsis outcome predictions.