Profile of Patients Admitted to an Intensive Care Unit of a University Hospital

Objective: trait of the profile of patients admitted to an intensive care unit of a university hospital. Method: descriptive, cross-sectional study with retrospective data collection and quantitative approach, performed at a teaching hospital in the Northeast of Brazil. The data of the 247 participants were collected in an own form, and analyzed through descriptive statistics. Results: the results showed that the studied population was predominantly composed of male elderly patients from the surgical center, and the admission diagnosis was predominant in the specialty of cardiology, with criterion of priority 2. The most frequent residence time was 1 to 2 Days, with a favorable clinical outcome due to the majority having been discharged from the ICU and the readmissions index was small during the analyzed period. Conclusions: the knowledge of the profile of the patients admitted to the ICU allows improving health care planning and organization of the work process. It can provide the quality of care offered by establishing criteria for admission and rational use of the beds, minimizing patient exposure to unnecessary risks, non-programmed rehospitalization, mortality and other relevant indices for the assessment of health care in care the critical patient