The Main Causes of Mortality in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in South West of Iran

[Background]The decreasing of mortality rate is one of the most important goals in every intensive care unit (ICU). This study was performed to determine the main causes of admission and mortality rate in our referral pediatric ICU (PICU).[Methods]In this retrospective study, all patients (age-group, 1 month - 16 years) admitted to the PICU in one year were included and patients with less than a 3h duration of admission, multiple traumas, and post-surgery patients were excluded.[Results]Among the 688 patients enrolled in the study, 55.6% were male and the mean patient age was 2.7 years. The most common causes of admission were pneumonia (22.9%), bronchiolitis (8.6%), and septicemia (7.9%). The mean duration of hospitalization was 3.3 days and the mortality rate was 16.5%, with a mean age of 2.2 years and 51.8% male. The most common causes of overall mortality were pneumonia (21.6%) and septicemia (16.2%), however, mortality was more common in patients admitted with septicemia (36.6%), liver failure (31.6%), chronic renal failure (28.6%), and meningitis (27.3%). Patients who had undergone intubation before admission, decreased level of consciousness, and prolonged duration of hospitalization were significantly correlated with the mortality (P < 0.05).[Conclusions]Our results indicate that the respiratory failure and severe infections are the most common causes of admission and mortality in the PICU and very young children are at risk of high incidence of mortality.