Risk factors associated with death in children admitted to a paediatric intensive care unit.

The aim of this study was to identify fatal risk factors for children admitted to the paediatric intensive care unit of the Instituto Materno Infantil de Pernambuco, a referral hospital in Recife, a city in the north-east of Brazil. A survey was performed from June 1996 to January 1997. Risk was quantified by the crude and adjusted odds ratio. The 95 per cent confidence interval, likelihood ratio statistics, and the probability (p < 0.05) value were used to test for statistical significance. An association was established between death in children admitted to the paediatric intensive care unit and: (1) age below 2 years old; (2) use of mechanical ventilation and central venous catheter; (3) presence of hospital-acquired infection; (4) length of hospital stay of 2 days or less; and (5) Class 4 clinical severity, according to the Clinical Classification System (CCS). These results allow the identification of the children with a greater risk of death and may contribute to improvements in handling groups of patients with poor prognosis.