A survey on clinical profile and outcome of critically ill children admitted to a paediatric intensive care unit: A retrospective study from a tertiary care hospital for children, Sri Lanka

Introduction: Understanding the clinical profile and outcome of critically ill children plays a substantial role in planning policies, improving existing essential healthcare and the quality of patient care.

Objectives: To describe the clinical profile and outcomes of children admitted to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) of Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Method: Children from 1 month to 16 years of age treated in the PICU from 1st January, 2017 to 31st December, 2019 were retrospectively reviewed and information was obtained on age, sex, mode of admission, length of stay, survivors, mortality, system involvement and disease classification.

Results: A total of 2983 patients were admitted and 1791 (60%) were included in the study. Majority (52.5%) were males. Median age at admission was 56 months. In-hospital transfers (68.4%) were more than referred transfers (31.6%). Median length of stay was 7 (IQR 5-9) days. Most frequent clinical PICU admissions were respiratory disorders (32.4%) and the most common single primary diagnosis was sepsis (40.1%). Overall, survival and mortality rates were 77.3% and 22.7% respectively.

Conclusions: Respiratory (32.4%), multi-system-sepsis (23%) and nervous system (18.5%) were the major causes for admission to the PICU. Commonest single primary diagnosis was sepsis (40.1%). Overall mortality rate was 22.7%.

Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health, 2022l; 51(2): 253-260