Predictors of early recovery of health status after intensive care

To identify factors predictive of good or poor recovery of health status and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) 90 days after admission to an intensive care unit (ICU).

Prospective international multicentre study in 19 ICUs participating in the HRQOL substudy of the SAPS 3 project.

The EuroQol questionnaire (EQ) was administered to discharged ICU patients 90 days after admission. A question to compare present health status with that 3 months before ICU admission (same/better/worse) was added.

Six hundred and eighteen patients who spent >24h in an ICU and survived for 90 days. EQ data and health comparison were available in 559 (90.5%) of them.

Patients reported their general level of health to be better (33.8%), the same (31.1%), or worse (35.1%) in comparison with baseline. Recovery was considered to be good for answers "better" or "the same". Regression analysis showed that transplantation surgery [odds ratio (OR) 0.07, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.01-0.63], coronary artery bypass surgery without valvular repair (OR 0.39, 95% CI 0.17-0.92) and being admitted to the ICU from a ward or other location (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.31-0.95) predicted good recovery of health. Predictors of poor recovery (all present at the time of ICU admission) were unplanned ICU admission, hypothermia, serum creatinine level >or=2mg/dl, pH

More than 60% of ICU patients report good recovery of their health 90 days after ICU admission, depending on their illness and circumstances of ICU admission.