Is my patient ready for a safe transfer to a lower-intensity care setting? Nursing complexity as an independent predictor of adverse events risk after ICU discharge

5noBackground: Patients discharged from intensive care units (ICUs) are at risk for adverse events (AEs). Establishing safe discharge criteria is challenging. No available criteria consider nursing complexity among risk factors. Objectives: To investigate whether nursing complexity upon ICU discharge is an independent predictor for AEs. Methods: Prospective observational study. The Patient Acuity and Complexity Score (PACS) was developed to measure nursing complexity. Its predictive power for AEs was tested using multivariate regression analysis. Results: The final regression model showed a very-good discrimination power (AUC 0.881; p