Access to the Intensive Care Unit by Severe Head Injury Patients

Abstract

Background The management of severe traumatic brain injury is directed at avoidance of secondary brain injuries. The intensive care unit (ICU) provides the ideal environment to achieving improved survival and functional outcome. The study sets out to identify the factors that determine the access of patients with severe head injury presenting at our hospital, to the ICU and their impact on outcome. Materials and Methods This was a longitudinal study at the University College Hospital, Ibadan. Data of all consecutive severe head injury patients over a 9-month period, presenting to the accident and emergency department, was collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi-squared test. The level of significance was p < 0.05. Result There were 36 males (80.0%) in our study, with road crashes (25; 79.5%) as the most common mechanism of injury. Most patients (33; 73.3%) were transferred to our center after initial care in another hospital. Though 31(68.9%) patients had access to the ICU, they were all delayed, with the most common reason for the delay being lack of ICU space. More patients who got admitted into ICU (14; 45.2%) were alive at 28 days into admission (p = 0.04). The females (6; 13.3%) significantly survived till 28 days on admission compared with males (p = 0.03), but there was no difference in the survival rates between children and adults. Conclusion Our study underscores the need for ICU admission in these patients to optimize outcome and identify the non-availability of beds, as the most important cause of delayed access, as well as the need for increased manpower capacity and organized resource utilization.