title: Prevalence of obesity in an intensive care unit patient population.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Australian health survey (2011-2012) reported that 63.4% of Australian adults were overweight or obese. Critical care medicine is expensive, with intensive care unit (ICU) services accounting for a substantial proportion of total hospital costs. These costs may be multiplied in the overweight cohort.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The primary aim was to compare the body mass index (BMI) of a critically ill ICU patient cohort to Australian population norms in order to see if overweight people were over-represented. The secondary aim was to identify if any medical specialty was associated with overweight patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective observational case note audit of 230 ICU patients between November 2012 and August 2013, with BMI as the primary outcome measure.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Approximately 75% of the cohort were overweight or obese (median BMI 28.7; IQR 25.0-32.7) representing a rate 12% higher than Australian normative data. Based on population, this equates to an estimated additional 5279 unanticipated overweight or obese ICU patients at our facility during 2013.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study has shown that Australian ICU patients may have higher BMI than those of the general Australian population, and therefore there may be unanticipated costs associated with their care. No medical specialty was associated with higher BMI than another.
authors.affiliation: Intensive Care Unit, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Hospital Ave, Nedlands, Western Australia 6009, Australia. Electronic address: Diane.Dennis@health.wa.gov.au.
authors.forename: Diane M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Dennis
authors.affiliation: University of Western Australia, Centre for Applied Statistics, Department of Research, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Hospital Ave, Nedlands, Western Australia 6009, Australia. Electronic address: scgh-cas@uwa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Trevenen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001315:Australia; D015992:Body Mass Index; D016638:Critical Illness / Q000451:nursing; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000628:therapy*; D015995:Prevalence; D012189:Retrospective Studies
keywords: Bariatric; Body mass index; Critical care; Intensive care