Mortality, survival and prognostic factors of people with AIDS in intensive care unit.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE\nTo analyze mortality, survival and prognostic factors of patients with AIDS in Intensive Care Unit (ICU).\n\n\nMETHOD\nRetrospective cohort study with a sample of 202 patients with AIDS in ICU, whose sociodemographic, epidemiological, and clinical characteristics were obtained from medical records and assessed.\n\n\nRESULTS\nPatients were mostly male (73.8%) and drug users (59.4%), with no regular health follow-up (61.4%) and no adherence to antiretrovirals (40.6%), presenting low CD4+ T lymphocyte count (94.0%) and high viral load (44.6%). The main causes of hospitalization were sepsis and respiratory and renal insufficiency. The mean duration of hospitalization was 11.9 days (p = 0.0001), with a 41.6% survival; 58.5% died in the ICU. Sepsis upon admission (p < 0.001), pressure injury (p = 0.038), sexual exposure (p = 0.002), high viral load (p = 0.00001) and prolonged hospitalization (p < 0.001) increased the risk of death.\n\n\nCONCLUSION\nMost patients had no regular health follow-up, were drug users and presented low CD4+ T lymphocyte count and high viral load. The high mortality indicated that antiretroviral adherence is essential to reduce viral resistance, opportunistic diseases, and mortality.