Infant Intensive Care Unit: Is it Time to Change?

Mehrnaz Olfat; Rayeheh Hosseinzadeh; Meisam Sharifzadeh; Seyed Abbas Hassani; Mehrdad Goudarzi; Masoud Mohammadpour

doi:10.1007/s12098-024-05032-1

Infant Intensive Care Unit: Is it Time to Change?

Indian J Pediatr. 2024 Feb 15. doi: 10.1007/s12098-024-05032-1. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Mehrnaz Olfat^{1

2

3}, Rayeheh Hosseinzadeh⁴, Meisam Sharifzadeh^{1

2}, Seyed Abbas Hassani^{1

2}, Mehrdad Goudarzi^{1

5}, Masoud Mohammadpour^{6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Children's Medical Center, Pediatrics Center of Excellence, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
² Division of Pediatric Intensive Care, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Medical Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
³ Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN), Tehran, Iran.
⁴ Faculty of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁵ Department of Anesthesiology, Children's Medical Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁶ Children's Medical Center, Pediatrics Center of Excellence, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. mmpour@tums.ac.ir.
⁷ Division of Pediatric Intensive Care, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Medical Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. mmpour@tums.ac.ir.

PMID: 38358405
DOI: 10.1007/s12098-024-05032-1

Abstract

Objectives: To assess the effect of the Infant intensive care unit (InICU), a specialized unit for critically ill infants established in 2016 in authors' hospital, on infant mortality and compare the outcome with the current Pediatric intensive care units (PICU).

Methods: In this retrospective cross-sectional study, two groups were defined; the first included expired patients aged 1 mo to 2 y admitted to PICU before the establishment of the InICU (the PICU group). The second included age-matched expired patients admitted to the InICU (the InICU group). Data were recorded using a questionnaire.

Results: The authors found that the age, sex, underlying diseases, the leading cause of admission to the ICU, time of death, hospital and ICU length of stay, and the pediatric index of mortality 2 (PIM 2) score were same between the two groups. The incidence of mortality in the PICU group was 10.66 in 1000 person-month. This value was 6.37 for the InICU group (P-value <0.001). The relative risk of mortality of patients admitted to the PICU group compared to the InICU group was 1.67 (P-value <0.001).

Conclusions: Establishment of age specific InICU for infants may be beneficial in reducing infant mortality.

Keywords: Infant; Intensive care unit; Mortality; Pediatric.