Impact of the premature discharge on hospital mortality after a stay in an intensive care unit

Objective: To determine the frequency and to evaluate the relationship between premature discharge and post-ICU hospital mortality. Design: A prospective registry was made for patients admitted during six consecutive years, performing a retrospective analysis of the data on the first admission of ICU survivors. Setting: A 10-bed general ICU in a 540-bed tertiary-care community hospital. Patients: 1,521 patients with an ICU stay longer than 12 hours, discharged alive to wards with known hospital outcome. Interventions: None. Main variables: We recorded the patient data, including types of ICU discharge, normal or premature, and studying their relationship with post-ICU hospital mortality. The types of ICU discharge were also evaluated versus ICU readmission rate and post-ICU length of stay. Results: There were 165 patients (10.8%) with premature discharge. Mortality rate was 11.6% (176 patients). The factors related with mortality were withdrawal and limitation of life-sustaining treatments (OR=14.02 [4.6-42.6]), readmissions to ICU (OR=3.46 [1.76-6.78]), premature discharge (OR=2.6 [1.06-4.41]), higher organ failure score on discharge from the ICU (OR=1.16 [1.01-1.32]) and age (OR=1.03 [1.01-1.05]). Readmission rates and post-ICU length of stay were similar among patients with premature and normal discharge (7.3% vs. 8.2%, P=.68 and 16.7+/-16.7 days vs. 18.7+/-21.3 days, respectively, P=.162). Conclusions: Premature discharges appear to be common in our setting and have a significant impact on mortality. Types of ICU discharge do not seem to be related with other outcome variables in the hospital care of critically ill patients. (C) 2010 Elsevier Espana, S.L. and SEMICYUC. All rights reserved.