Mortality Patterns among Critically Ill Children in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of a Sanglah Hospital

Background: The pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is a part of the hospital where critically ill pedi?atric patients who require advanced airway, respiratory, and hemodynamic supports. In inten?sive care unit (ICU) results can be assessed on the basis of outcomes such as death or survival by means of indicators such as mortality rates. The mortality in a PICU can reflect a hospital health care quality and effective management on handling with critical ill patients. Objective: To determine mortality profile of the children admitted at PICU Sanglah Hospital. Methods: A total of 100 subjects were analyzed in this study.The median age of treated subjects was 1 year with the youngest 1 month and the oldest 14 years, and the greatest age group was the 1 month-11 months age group (40%). The most subjects treated were male (55%) and 54% subjects with mild malnutrition condition. The subjects predominantly were referral patients from hospitals or other health service facilities. The average length of stay of these subjects from admission to death in PICU was 7.98 days, with length of stay of more than 3 days being higher in proportion. Of the 100 subjects, 85% were on a ventilator, 47% used central venous access and 21% received parenteral nutrition. The mean procalcitonin level was 28.64 ng/mL. The most common cause of death was sepsis (61%). Among the subjects with sepsis, Pelod score 7-10 and inotropic score ?20 were the greatest in proportion. Conclusion: Sepsis had a higher predisposition of higher mortality rate in PICU. So the source of infection either hospital acquired or community acquired should be identified and managed aggressively.