Six year mortality profile of a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit: associaton between out-of-hours and mortality.

Introduction. Recent improvements in pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) were achieved through trained personnel and better technology, leading to an increase in patient care, survival rates and good prognosis. Nevertheless the quality of care varies according to the availability of human and technical resources. Objective. The aim was to determine the correlation of mortality rates with daytime shifts compared to other shift periods (off-hours). Methods. Work hours were defined as week days between 8: 00 a.m. and 5: 00 p.m., with in-house attendance of senior staff, and off-hours as week days between 5: 00 p.m. and 8: 00 a.m., weekends and public holidays, with one resident covering the PICU and senior staff directly available only on-call. Mortality causes in children hospitalized in the intensive care unit were classified. Results. During this period, a total of 2,187 patients were hospitalized in the PICU. A total of 394 patients died; 151 were girls (38.3 %) and 243 boys (61.7 %). Evaluating time of mortality showed that death occurred mostly at out-off hours: 244 (61.9 %) vs. 150 (38.1 %) during the daytime shift, which was statistically significant (p < 0.05). In addition, age, gender and the length of stay in the PICU were not significant (p > 0.05) when daytime was compared to out-off hours. The conditions which accompanied death were evaluated, the relationship between working hours and death was also significant (p < 0.05). More conditions related to mortality were encountered at off-hours. Conclusion. Off-hours without 24 hour attendance of senior staff, was associated with higher mortality.