Factors associated with mortality among patients admitted at Muhimbili orthopaedic, ICU from august 2012 to feb 2013

Background: There is paucity of findings relating to the effectiveness of ICU units in majority of health care systems of sub-Saharan Africa. Studies aiming at identifying factors associated with mortality at ICU would likely contribute to improvement of care and quality control/quality assessment. Objectives: To determine factors associated with mortality among trauma and neurosurgical patients admitted at MOI ICU from August 2012 to Feb 2013. Materials and Methods: The study was a Cross sectional analytical study, conducted from August 2012 to Feb 2013 at Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute (MOI) Intensive Care Unit. All trauma and neurosurgical patients admitted at ICU who met the criteria for recruitment were enrolled into the study. A structured questionnaire, was used to collect the information as guided by the objectives of the study. Analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17. Chi square tests were used to determine association between predictors / factors and outcome for categorical variables, and Student’s t test for the signicance difference among continuous variables. A P value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant Results;The study recruited 78 trauma and neurosurgical patients admitted at MOI ICU. That constituted 17 females and 61 males. Outcome was a binary variable that translated to a mortality rate of 57.6%. Female gender was found to have a protective association towards mortality (χ2=6.4736, df=1, p-value=0.0109). APACHEII score was found to be significantly distinguishing the outcomes (T-test statistic= -10.03, df=1, p