Factors associated with the occurrence of adverse events in critical elderly patients

to identify the factors associated with the occurrence of adverse events in critical elderly patients admitted to intensive care unit according to demographic and clinical characteristics.

a retrospective cohort study was conducted in nine units of a teaching hospital. Data were collected from medical records and from monitoring of nursing shift change. We used the t-test/Mann-Whitney, chi-square and logistic regression to test associations. Significance level of 5% was used.

out of the 315 elderly, 94 experienced events. Those who experienced events were men (60.6%) with mean age of 70.7 years, length of hospital stay of 10.6 days and survivors (61.7%). Most of the 183 events were clinical processes and procedures (37.1%). There was an association between adverse event and length of hospital stay in the unit (p=0.000; OR=1.10, 95% CI [1.06, 1.14]).

the identification of associated events and factors in the elderly subsidize the prevention of these occurrences before the vulnerability of this age group.