Hospitalization and outcome of patients in the ICU of Tripoli Hospital

Introduction: Every year millions of people worldwide fall ill in critical condition and seek intensive care making it necessary to have Intensive Care Units (ICUs) that are able to meet these needs. In recent years, ICUs are growing more and more worldwide, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and their need has been further strengthened by the coronavirus pandemic.

Aim: The present research study aimed to record and analyze the number of admissions, discharges, deaths, the average length of hospitalization and the average age of patients in the ICU of the General Hospital of Tripoli.

Material and Method: Data were collected for patients admitted to the ICU and Cardiologic Care Unit (CCU) of Tripoli Hospital for the semester July - December 2020. These data were then analyzed with the SPSS statistical program in order to extract percentage data to ameliorate their interpretation. Results: From the 107 patients studied, the mean age was 65.65 years for the ICU, 67.03 years for the CCU and 66.32 years in total. The ratio of the two sexes was, for the ICU 61.8% men and 38.2% women, for the CU 90.4% men and 9.6% women, and 75.7% men and 24.3 % women in total. The average length of hospital stay was 14.87 days in the ICU, 1 day in the CCU and 7.91 days in total. Finally, the mortality rate was 23.6% in the ICU, 1.9% in the CCU and 13.1% in total for both Units. The geographical origin of the incidents, and the departments that were treated before and after the ICU, were also studied.

Conclusions: ICUs are very important as they provide the intensive and immediate care that patients require to stay alive and have a better prognosis in the future. It is therefore necessary to conduct more studies on ICUs and to provide more opportunities for staff training and updating of practices and methods used.