Outcomes after critical care admission in people with a learning disability

People with learning disabilities experience worse healthcare outcomes than the general population. There is evidence that they are more likely to experience avoidable mortality and less likely to receive critical care interventions during an acute illness. Decisions regarding critical care admission or intervention must be based on evidence of whether a patient will receive lasting benefit from a critical care admission. We therefore investigated outcomes from critical care admissions in people with learning disabilities and compared them to general critical care patients.

People with learning disabilities who were admitted to our critical care unit were identified via our coding department, from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) database and from our local electronic patient record. Mortality and length of stay outcomes for people with learning disabilities were recorded following critical care admission over a 5 years period and compared with the general critical care cohort over the same 5 years period. Longer term survival of patients with learning disabilities was also recorded.

297 critical care admissions in 176 people with learning disabilities were identified. The general critical care cohort included 6224 admissions in 4976 patients. The standardised mortality rate in people with learning disabilities admitted to critical care was 0.59 compared to the general critical care cohort which was 0.98. Mortality outcomes remained better in patients with learning disabilities compared to the general critical care cohort in invasively ventilated patients and in people with profound and multiple learning disability. Critical care length of stay was longer in people with learning disabilities. 12 month mortality was 14.8% in the learning disability cohort. By the end of the study, 23.9% of people with learning disabilities had died after a mean of 482 days following their first critical care admission. Patients who are currently still alive after having survived to hospital discharge following critical care admission have lived an average of 1129 days. After only 7.4% of critical care admissions in people with learning disabilities was there an increase in dependence on assistance in activities of daily living.

We have shown that people with learning disabilities are more likely to survive following a critical care admission than general critical care patients. This is regardless of whether they were invasively ventilated or whether they had profound and multiple learning disabilities. Critical care admission and invasive ventilation are associated with good short and longer term mortality.