Evaluation of risk factors for postoperative ICU admission in a tertiary care hospital - A case control study

Background & objective: Appropriate decisions regarding admission of potential patients to intensive care unit (ICU) postoperatively are considered very important for the patient care. We evaluated the reasons and the risk factors for postoperative ICU admissions in our hospital. Methodology: This is a case-control study, that was done at Security Forces Hospital, Riyadh, during the period from July 2019 to December 2019. We included all patients who needed ICU admission postoperatively in the study as cases. The controls were the patients who had any surgical procedure during the same study period. Patients' demographics, ASA status, medical co-morbidities and operation details were recorded. We then did univariate and multivariate logistic regression to analyze the data. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered as significant. Results: We enrolled a total of 140 patients in the study, with 46 cases and 94 controls. In univariate analysis, age, ASA status, presence of hypertension, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, respiratory disease, renal dysfunction and neurological abnormalities were found to be statistically significant predictors for postoperative ICU admission. In multivariate analysis, ASA status and perioperative neurological abnormalities were the most significant risk factors for ICU admission. Conclusion: ASA status and presence of neurological abnormalities are the most significant risk factors associated with ICU admission in the postoperative period.