Risk factors for death in pediatric intensive care unit of a tertiary children's hospital in Guangzhou city

Abstract

Background: Most of the previous studies about risk factors associated with death in pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) were done in western countries and focused on physiological and laboratorial indexes. Some of them had inconsistent results. There were few studies about the epidemiologic profile of mortality and risk factors associated with death in the PICU in China. Compared with other countries, China has different health care policy, insurance system, population, culture, and socioeconomic situation that may affect disease outcomes differently. Some data showed that Chinese PICUs had higher mortality. It is important to know more about the possible factors associated with excess death in PICU in a Chinese setting.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to estimate mortality (incidence proportion of death) in pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) in a tertiary hospital and identify the main risk factors associated with death in PICU.

Methods: This was a case-control study. We retrospectively investigated the clinical data of patients who were admitted to the PICU during January 2010 to December 2013 in a tertiary hospital in Guangzhou, China. All the dead cases in PICU during the studied period were chosen as cases, and the controls were randomly selected from the patients who were alive when they were discharged from the PICU during the same period. The incidence proportion of death was estimated, and then logistic regression model was carried out to explore the risk factors for death.

Results: The overall mortality in this PICU was 6.5% (95% CI 5.6 % - 7.4%) during January 2010 to December 2013. The following factors were found to have significant association with higher risk for death: middle level socioeconomic status (OR 2.51, 95% 1.07 - 5.87) and low level socioeconomic status (OR 5.86, 95% CI 2.32 - 14.77) compared with the high level socioeconomic status; admission from pediatric emergency observation unit (OR 2.08, 95% CI 1.10 - 3.91) compared with admission from transfer system (i.e. other hospital); critical severity of disease (OR 2.62 , 95% CI 1.48 - 4.64), and seriously critical severity of disease (OR 8.41, 95% CI 3.26 - 21.67) compared with non-critical severity of disease ; existence of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (OR 3.64, 95% CI 1.91- 6.91) compared with absence of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome; existence of comorbidity (OR 3.14, 95% CI 1.68 - 5.86) compared with absence of comorbidity; infectious disease (OR 2.42, 95% CI 1.07- 5.49), neoplasm (OR 4.53, 95% CI 1.63 - 12.62), neurological disease ( OR 4.21, 95% CI 1.85 - 9.59) and endocrine, immune and nutritional disease (OR 7.56, 95% CI 2.10 - 27.20 ) compared with respiratory disease .

Conclusion: Our study was the first one to comprehensively investigate the risk factors for death in PICU of a tertiary hospital in China. We described profile of dead cases, estimated the mortality and investigated the risk factors associated with death in PICU. During January 2010 to December 2013 the mortality in the PICU was found to be 6.5%, and risk factors for higher mortality in PICU included lower level socioeconomic status, admission from the pediatric emergency observation unit, more severe conditions of disease, presence of comorbidity and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, and disease categories of infectious diseases, neoplasm, neurological disease, and endocrine, immune and nutritional disease. Our study provided information for developing preventive strategy to reduce the mortality in PICU.