Medical cases admitted to Kenyatta National Hospital I.C.U. and their outcome : a five year retrospective study January 1995- December 199

Abstract

This was a five year retrospective study on the outcome of intensive care medical admissions between January 1995 and December 1999: aiming at determining/examining correlates and predictors of outcome. Univariate predictors considered were age. duration of stay, disease category and number of organ systems affected and correlated against outcome grossly classified as either mortality or survival. During this period, 4346 patients were admitted to lCU 9% of these were medical patients. Age bracket considered showed higher mortalities in the extremes of the groups, 83.7% being below 1 year and 82.0% mortality above 60 years age. Whereas majority of patients (96.9%) died within the first 24 hours of admission, the duration of stay on the other hand correlated directly well with survival rate. The main disease mortality patterns were seen in respiratory disease (79.4%), neurological disorders (83.9%), malignancies (93.3%) and immunosuppression (85.7%). Higher mortality was seen with multiple organ system involvement with rates increasing between 73.4% for single organ involvement to 100% for more than 3 organ system.