One-year mortality after recovery from critical illness: A retrospective cohort study

Factors associated with one-year mortality after recovery from critical illness are not well understood. Clinicians generally lack information regarding post-hospital discharge outcomes of patients from the intensive care unit, which may be important when counseling patients and families.

We sought to determine which factors among patients who survived for at least 30 days post-ICU admission are associated with one-year mortality.

Single-center, longitudinal retrospective cohort study of all ICU patients admitted to a tertiary-care academic medical center from 2001-2012 who survived ≥30 days from ICU admission. Cox's proportional hazards model was used to identify the variables that are associated with one-year mortality. The primary outcome was one-year mortality.

32,420 patients met the inclusion criteria and were included in the study. Among patients who survived to ≥30 days, 28,583 (88.2%) survived for greater than one year, whereas 3,837 (11.8%) did not. Variables associated with decreased one-year survival include: increased age, malignancy, number of hospital admissions within the prior year, duration of mechanical ventilation and vasoactive agent use, sepsis, history of congestive heart failure, end-stage renal disease, cirrhosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and the need for renal replacement therapy. Numerous effect modifications between these factors were found.

Among survivors of critical illness, a significant number survive less than one year. More research is needed to help clinicians accurately identify those patients who, despite surviving their acute illness, are likely to suffer one-year mortality, and thereby to improve the quality of the decisions and care that impact this outcome.