Ten years of asthma admissions to adult critical care units in England and Wales

Abstract

ObjectivesTo describe the patient demographics, outcomes and trends of admissions with acute severe asthma admitted to adult critical care units in England and Wales.Design10-year, retrospective analysis of a national audit database.SettingSecondary care: adult, general critical care units in the UK.Participants830 808 admissions to adult, general critical care units.Primary and secondary outcome measuresDemographic data including age and sex, whether the patient was invasively ventilated or not, length of stay (LOS; both in the critical care unit and acute hospital), survival (both critical care unit and acute hospital) and time trends across the 10-year period.ResultsOver the 10-year period, there were 11 948 (1.4% of total) admissions with asthma to adult critical care units in England and Wales. Among them 67.5% were female and 32.5% were male (RR F:M 2.1; 95% CI 2.0 to 2.1). Median LOS in the critical care unit was 1.8 days (IQR 0.9–3.8). Median LOS in the acute hospital was 7 days (IQR 4–14). Critical care unit survival rate was 95.5%. Survival at discharge from hospital was 93.3%. There was an increase in admissions to adult critical care units by an average of 4.7% (95% CI 2.8 to 6.7)/year.ConclusionsAcute asthma represents a modest burden of work for adult critical care units in England and Wales. Demographic patterns for admission to critical care unit mirror those of severe asthma in the general adult community. The number of critical care admissions with asthma are rising, although we were unable to discern whether this represents a true increase in the incidence of acute asthma or asthma severity.

Quality of acute asthma care in two tertiary hospitals in a state in South Western Nigeria: A report of clinical audit

“…This is in keeping with findings in other studies 617181920. Female sex is a risk factor for severe asthma which is associated with increased hospital admissions.…”

Non‐invasive ventilation use in status asthmaticus: 16 years of experience in a tertiary intensive care

“…The rates of IMV (11.7%) in our study were lower than previous studies but our total (IMV and NIV) rate of ventilation was 78% . More recent data reports a trend for lower rates of IMV use .…”

“…Within our study the IMV rates for the first 6 years was 16.1% and dropped to 9.3% in the final 10 years. Our study shows shorter CCC and hospital LOS than most published international data . However, an American database study had similar LOS for their NIV patients of 4.1 days …”

Independent risk factors for death in patients admitted for asthma exacerbation in Taiwan

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