An experience with surgical admissions to a paediatric ICU (PICU) in Harare, Zimbabwe.

OBJECTIVE: To find out if the status of a patient on arrival in the intensive care unit had any bearing on the immediate ICU outcome and if there are any correctable factors.

DESIGN: A retrospective survey.

SETTING: Paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe between January 1997 and December 1998.

SUBJECTS: 147 emergency surgical admissions.

RESULTS: There were 147 surgical patients admitted to the PICU during the period of whom 77 were male and 43 were emergency surgical procedures. All patients were coming from the operating theatres (OT). Factors associated with a poor ICU outcome were emergency surgical admission (p<0.001), hypothermia on arrival in the PICU (p<0.001) and requirement for ventilation (p<0.001). On multivariate analysis only the first two were associated with a poor ICU outcome.

CONCLUSION: Some simple measures could be undertaken to improve immediate ICU outcome in surgical patients in a resource limited environment, such as improving the ambient temperature in OT during surgery and standardising transportation to PICU.