Background: Intensive care has become very important in the management of critically ill children who require advanced airway, respiratory, and hemodynamic supports and are usually admitted into the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) with the aim of achieving an outcome better than if the patients were admitted into other parts of the hospital. It becomes important to audit admissions and their outcome, which may help to modify practices if necessary following thorough introspection, leading to better patient outcomes.

Objective: To evaluate the morbidity pattern and outcome of admissions into the PICU of a tertiary care center in India.

Methods: A retrospective study in which records of admissions (January 2015 to August 2017) were obtained from the PICU records. Information retrieved included age, sex, weight, diagnosis, duration of stay in the unit, and outcome.

Results: Mean age of the studied 1231 patients was 28.5419 ± 36.8344 months; 55.2% were infants and 61.2%were males. The three most common disease categories admitted were Respiratory disease (32.3%), neurological disorders (17.0%), and Infection other than sepsis- (11.7%). The mean duration of stay in PICU was 7.42 ± 7.72 days. The overall mortality rate was 20.9%.

Conclusion: Mortality is moderate in our PICU. We conclude that a well-equipped intensive care unit with modern and innovative intensive care greatly facilitates the care of critically ill patients giving desirable outcome if there is early referral.

Keywords: PICU admission, morbidity pattern, outcome of patients, India.

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Dr Dhrubajyoti Mridha

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