Characteristics and Prognostic Factors of Elderly Patients in Intensive Care Unit
Abstract
Introduction: the elderly often have high prevalence of chronic diseases and less organic reserves and, to determine increased demand for intensive care unit (ICU) beds, easily evolve to a critical state, resulting in a greater cost when admitted to these units. Objective: describing the characteristics and prognostic factors of elderly in the ICU of a public hospital in the city of João Pessoa-PB. Methods: a cohort study with retrospective collection involving elderly aged ≥ 60 years old, and used SPSS software, Pearson's chi-square and the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests. Results: there were evaluated 72 elderly with an average age of 73.39 years old and average length of stay in the unit of 8.65 days. The overall mortality of the elderly was of 40.3%. From the elderly admitted to postoperative most showed discharge for improvement. The postoperative period was the first cause of hospitalization and acute respiratory failure the second, being the major responsible for unfavorable outcomes in individuals investigated. Conclusion: the reason for admission and the existence of chronic diseases may be associated with higher mortality in elderly hospitalized in intensive care unit. Thus, a better understanding of the factors related to prognosis of critically ill elderly can direct care strategies for this clientele in this hospital sector.
Keywords
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access and Benefits of Publishing Open Access).
