Difficult intubation and outcomes in intubated patients admitted to intensive care unit

Abstract

Background & Aims: Endotracheal intubation is commonly performed in the intensive care unit. Many international guidelines for difficult intubation management are available and the intensivists think that any endotracheal intubation in ICU is potentially difficult with several complications.

Materials & Methods: After obtaining ethical approval, this descriptive and analytical study was conducted from 2014 to 2015 in the Urmia Emam hospital GICU. Demographic characteristic (Age, Sex), underlying diseases, mean of intubation, mechanical ventilation, ICU and hospital length of stay, frequency of difficult intubation, drugs used for intubation, mortality of patients were extracted from the medical information unit and entered to check lists. The data were analyzed with SPSS software ver.20. . P< 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: The mean of variables were as follows: intubation period 14.56±4.71, mechanical ventilation 13.24±5.54, ICU length of stay 18.11±10.16 and hospital 21.04±13.09 days. Frequency of difficult intubation was 9.31%. Mean number of attempts was 1.31 times for intubation and frequency of mortality was 35.17%. The Mean of intubation, mechanical ventilation, ICU and hospital length of stay period between 2 groups (difficult and non difficult intubation) were significantly different (P<0.05), although mortality frequency was not significant.

Conclusion: This study, like previous studies showed that difficult intubation had a negative influence on patients’ outcome in the intensive care unit.