title: Two-year outcome of adult intensive care patients.
abstract: Five hundred fifty-eight patients admitted to a general/medical surgical intensive care unit were studied 2 years after hospital discharge to determine whether they were still alive, were able to perform daily activities, and had returned to work. The overall 2-year survivorship (hospital and long-term) was 63.5%. Two-year survival was considerably lower for patients with certain condition or treatment characteristics than for others. This ranged from 14% 2-year survival for patients with 48 or more hours of coma to 82.2% for patients with no condition or treatment characteristics recorded. Once a patient was discharged alive, the 2-year cumulative survival of surgical ICU patients (84.6%) was significantly better than that of medical ICU patients (76.5%). Among ICU survivors responding to a follow-up survey, 85% were able to perform daily activities, but only 66% were working. Of the 44 patients experiencing a change in ability to perform daily activities at time of follow-up compared with pre-ICU admission, functional status of 34 (77%) improved, while 10 (23%) got worse. By comparison, of the 45 patients experiencing a change in working status, only 7 patients (16%) who did not work prior to ICU admission had returned to work, whereas the remaining 38 patients (84%) who worked prior to ICU admission were not working at time of follow-up study.
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004651:Employment; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006746:Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D008404:Massachusetts; D008875:Middle Aged; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009026:Mortality; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D012044:Regression Analysis