title: Factors affecting mortality of critical care trauma patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Critically-ill trauma patients have a high mortality.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To study the factors affecting the mortality of ICU trauma patients treated at Al-Ain Hospital, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
  
  
  METHODS
  All trauma patients who were admitted to the ICU were prospectively collected over three years (2003-2006). Univariate and multivariate analysis were used to compare patients who died and who did not. Gender, age, nationality, mechanism of injury, systolic blood pressure and GCS on arrival, the need for ventilation, presence of head or chest injuries, AIS for the chest and head injuries and the ISS were studied.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 202 patients (181 males). The most common mechanism of injury was road traffic collisions (72.3 %). The overall mortality was 13.9%. A direct logistic regression model has shown that factors that affected mortality were decreased GCS (p < 0.0001), mechanism of injury (p = 0.004) with burns having the highest mortality, increased age (p = 0.004), and increased ISS (p = 0.02). The best GCS that predicted mortality was 5.5 while the best ISS that predicted mortality was 13.5.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Road traffic collision is the most common cause of serious trauma in UAE followed by falls. Decreased GCS was the most significant factor that predicted mortality in the ICU trauma patients.
authors.affiliation: Trauma Group, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates.
authors.forename: A F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Hefny
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Idris
authors.forename: H O
authors.initials: HO
authors.lastname: Eid
authors.forename: F M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Abu-Zidan
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000401:mortality; D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000401:mortality; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002056:Burns / Q000401:mortality; D002423:Cause of Death; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003422:Critical Care; D005260:Female; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012042:Registries; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014479:United Arab Emirates / Q000453:epidemiology; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000145:classification / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Intensive Care Unit; epidemiology; hospitalization; injury; mortality; registry