A multi-center Thai university-based surgical intensive care units study (THAI-SICU study): methodology and ICU characteristics.

OBJECTIVE: Although there were two large intra-operative observational studies on Thai surgical patients (THAI and THAI-AIMS), there has been no available study on critically ill surgical patients regarding their adverse events and outcomes. A THAI-Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) study has been established for monitoring the occurrence of these adverse events and outcomes in the SICU. The objective of this report is to describe the methodology of the THAI-SICU study and participating SICUs' characteristics as well as the early recruitment results on patients enrolled in the present study.

MATERIAL AND METHOD: The present study is designed as a multi-center, prospective, observational study. This report describes the method of case record form development and summarizes their collected parameters as well as the adverse event surveillance variables. All of nine SICU characteristics are described regarding their management systems, physicians' and nurses' work patterns. The final group of enrolled patients is reported.

RESULTS: A total of nine university-based SICUs were included in the present study. All participating hospitals are residency training centers. Four of the SICUs, fulltime directors are anesthesiologists. Only one hospital's SICU is directed by a surgeon. Two SICUs were closed ICUs, three were mandatory consulting units, one was an elective consultation unit and the remaining three ICUs had no directors. Most of the participating SICUs had heterogeneity of surgical specialty patients. Six SICUs had regular resident rotations and only two of the SICUs had critical care fellowship training. There were significant differences regarding the nursing workload among the ICUs. The patient to registered nurse ratio ranged from 0.9-2.0. After a total of 19.7 months of a recruitment period, the total number of patient admissions was 6,548 (1,894 patients were excluded). A total cohort of 4,654 patients was included for further analytical processes.

CONCLUSION: There were differences in ICU management systems, physician and specialist coverage, nurse burdens, nurse sparing, and types of patients admitted in the university based SICUs. This presentation is the pioneer multi-center study on Thai SICUs in which adverse events and outcomes are reported.