Secular Trends in an Indian Intensive Care Unit-database Derived Epidemiology: The Stride Study

Area of Science:

• Critical Care Medicine
• Health Informatics
• Epidemiology

Background:

• The Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine (ISCCM) developed the CHITRA (Customized Health in Intensive Care Trainable Research and Analysis) system for electronic data capture in Indian ICUs.
• This initiative aimed to standardize and store critical care data systematically.

Purpose of the Study:

• To capture and summarize longitudinal epidemiological data from a tertiary care hospital ICU.
• To analyze trends using pre-existing and CHITRA database information.

Main Methods:

• A prospective observational study design was employed.
• Data was extracted from two distinct periods: pre-CHITRA (2006-2014) and CHITRA (2015-2018).
• Patient diagnoses were coded using ICD-10, and outcomes were analyzed using statistical methods including t-tests and regression analyses.

Main Results:

• A total of 18,940 patients were analyzed, with a male predominance and a median age of 52 years.
• Patient age and mean APACHE II scores increased over the study period.
• Significant decrease in ICU mortality was observed over the years (p=0.000).
• Common diagnoses shifted from general symptoms to Type 1 Respiratory failure.

Conclusions:

• The CHITRA system proved useful for capturing epidemiological data in a single-center ICU.
• The findings demonstrate the system's value for tracking trends and improving critical care research.