[Four years of raw mortality in an intensive care unit].
OBJECTIVE
To characterize magnitude and variability of raw mortality in a Mexican Intensive Care Unit (ICU).


METHODS
Demographic and clinical data were analyzed in 1,746 patients discharged from the ICU of the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Medicas y Nutricion Salvador Zubiran. The data was obtained from an administrative database and covered four years (2003-2006).


RESULTS
Overall ICU-mortality was 23% (410/1746) and was associated with two binary variables (higher mortality in weekend admissions and non-surgical cases) and three multicategorical variables (gradient of increasing mortality with increasing age, increasing diagnostic risk and increasing number of high-rish diagnoses). First biennium mortality was significantly higher than in the second biennium (29% us 19%). This higher mortality was not associated with the high risk categories of the five variables described above nor with other ICU-variables such as number of nurses and admission and discharge criteria. The only biennium difference was a higher number of physicians (specialists + residents) in the second biennium (16-20 versus 14-15 in the first).


CONCLUSIONS
The four-year long-term ICU-mortality showed a significant decrease in the second biennium. Number of physicians was the only variable associated with the decreased mortality.
Loria
Alvar
A
Unidad de Epidemiología Clínica, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, México, D.F. aloria@quetzal.innsz.mx
Rosas-Baruch
Agustina
A
Posadas
Juan Gabriel
JG
Domínguez-Cherit
Guillermo
G
Rivero-Sigarroa
Eduardo
E
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult