Objective To investigate the epidemiological characteristics and mortality risk factors of the inpatients diagnosed with sepsis in a general hospital. Methods The patients admitted to Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, from January 1st,2018 to December 31st, 2019 were enrolled and the retrospective study was conducted on the patients diagnosed with sepsis. The patients were divided into survival group and dead group, and their clinical data were analyzed and compared. The Logistic regression analysis was used to identify independent risk factors of death in the patients during hospitalization. Results A total of 674 patients (75.7%) diagnosed with sepsis were included in the study. Most of patients were male (64.8%) and the median age was 65 years. The median length of hospital stay was 23 d. The hospital mortality was 31.5%. The diabetes mellitus(20.8%) was the most common comorbid disease and followed by tumor (15.0%）. The most common site of infection was abdomen (43.6%) and the highest proportion in microorganisms isolated from positive blood cultures was Klebsiella pneumoniae (30.6%). Respiratory tract infection was the main infection site in deceased patients. Through Logistic regression analysis, the independent risk factors of hospital mortality were identified, which were age ≥60 years, low weight, admission from internal medicine wards, multiple organ failure, septic shock and increasing sepsis-related organ failure assessment(SOFA). Conclusions The factors affecting the in-hospital mortality were older age, low weight, multiple organ failure and septic shock.