Full Term Intensive Care Unit Survivors: Outcome Assessment. Executive Summaryand Final Reports

摘要

Although short and long term outcome of low birthweight neonatal intensive careunit (NICU) survivors has been extensively studied, much less information is available for normal birthweight infants who require NICU care. To address this issue the author has examined the neonatal hospitalizations and six-month health status of 521 consecutive normal birthweight NICU admissions at a single hospital during a sixteen month period beginning in 1989. The in-hospital mortality rate for this group was 2.0% Active intensive care therapy was required by 59% of infants while the rest required only intensive monitoring. The need for intensive therapy along with the presence of prematurity and congenital anomalies were significant predictors of resource consumption. Following initial discharge, 15% of these infants required rehospitalization in the first six to eight months of life. In addition to its association with neonatal resource consumption, the presence of congenital anomalies along with low five minute Apgar scores were associated with higher post-discharge resource use as measured by frequency of physician visits, need for special medical items, and rate of rehospitalization (p<0.05).