Background: Demographic criteria, clinical profile and outcome of pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) patients are significantly different from center to center and from country to country. Outcome assessment is of considerable importance to parents, intensive care staff, and Ministries of health.
Objectives:The aim of this study was to analyze demographic criteria, clinical profile and outcome in El-Hussein University Hospital PICU.
Methods: Data of El Hussein University hospital PICU patients had been collected prospectively through 18 months from 1/7/2011 to 31/12/2012. Collected data include: demographic profile; admission source and diagnosis at admission; length of stay (LOS) and discharge outcome. Data were expressed as mean ± SD, p value: Student's t-test; χ2.
Results:286 patients (190 boys/ 96 girls), Their ages ranged from one month to fifteen years, were admitted due to respiratory disorders (43%), cardio vascular disorders (20.9%), CNS disorders (12.2%) and surgical disorders (11.1%), Endocrine\ Metabolic (7.6%), and other causes (5.2%). The overall outcome of the patients showed a cure rate of 81.8% while the morbidity rate was 5.3% and the mortality rate was 12.9%. The main causes of mortality are Accidents (8patients) followed by renal failure, CNS infections, and pneumonia by (4patients) for each of them. There were no significant statistical differences between survivors and died cases regarding age, gender or consanguinity, while there was a highly significant statistical difference between them regarding the length of hospital stay. There was no significant difference between survivors and died cases in relation to the admission source except patients admitted from the neurosurgery department (P value was 0.0182).
Conclusions:Demographic profile was similar to other relevant studies while there were major differences in the pattern of diseases and the severity of the illness. Mortality rate (12.9 %) was relatively high. Accidents and infections presented as a main causes of death among our patients.