Critical care science最新文献

Purpose: To translate, cross-culturally adapt and evaluate the clinimetric properties of the Chelsea Critical Care Physical Assessment for the functional evaluation of patients admitted to intensive care units in Brazil.

Methods: The steps involved in the translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the instrument included the following: initial translation, synthesis, back-translation, review by an expert committee and pretesting. Intra- and interrater reliability and agreement were analyzed with data generated from physical therapists' assessments of the same group of patients with the translated and adapted instrument (n = 30). The evaluations were performed by two physical therapists who independently and blindly obtained scores from the patients. Qualitative analysis was performed by the review committee with the expert-adapted and expert-synthesized translation of the Chelsea Critical Care Physical Assessment scale into Portuguese, and the content validity index was calculated.

Results: Agreement was achieved between the translations of the Chelsea Critical Care Physical Assessment scale into Brazilian. Conceptual, idiomatic, semantic and experimental equivalences between the original and translated versions were obtained, resulting in the Brazilian version of the instrument, called the Avaliação Física em Cuidados Intensivos Chelsea, with a content validity index of 0.91. Evaluation of the clinimetric properties revealed evidence of high degrees of agreement and reliability, as all properties had an intraclass correlation coefficient above 0.75. The total intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.99.

Conclusion: A version of the Chelsea Critical Care Physical Assessment scale can be reliably used in Brazil for functional assessment following its translation and cross-cultural adaptation to Brazilian Portuguese and shows evidence of excellent interrater reliability.

Objective: To evaluate risk factors, molecular profiles, and hospital mortality of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) infections in intensive care unit patients.

Methods: In this retrospective, multicenter cohort study, intensive care unit admissions from 52 intensive care units between January 2019 and December 2020 were analyzed in a nested case-control design. Patients with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales infections were propensity score-matched 1:1 to those with carbapenem-susceptible Enterobacterales infections. Hierarchical conditional logistic regression identified risk factors for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales, and multivariable logistic regression assessed the association of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales with 60-day in-hospital mortality. Molecular genotyping was also conducted.

Results: Matching resulted in 250 carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales patients and 250 carbapenem-susceptible Enterobacterales patients. Sepsis was more common in the carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales group (58% versus 35%; p < 0.001). Risk factors for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales included major premorbid assistance requirements (OR 1.72, 95%CI 0.99 - 3.01; p = 0.06) and intensive care unit readmission (OR 1.87, 95%CI 1.00 - 3.49; p = 0.05), although with weak associations. Acute COVID-19 (OR 3.55, 95%CI 1.96 - 6.45; p < 0.001) also increased the odds of resistance. Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales infection was associated with twice the likelihood of 60-day mortality after adjusting for covariates (OR 1.95, 95%CI 1.26 - 3.02; p < 0.001). The predominant bacteria and carbapenemase resistance genes included Klebsiella pneumoniae (79%), Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (73%), New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (13%), and xacillinase-48 (9%).

Conclusion: Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales-related infections in intensive care unit patients were associated with major premorbid dependence, intensive care unit readmission, and acute COVID-19. In addition, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales infections were independently associated with poorer hospital outcomes. This study also characterized the resistance profile of Enterobacterales in Brazilian intensive care units, which are dominated by K. pneumoniae with high rates of carbapenemase and increased rates of New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase, in comparison with previous reports.

Objective: Agitation is a major problem in the intensive care unit. However, no treatment has clearly emerged as effective and safe. Using target trial emulation, we aimed to test the hypothesis that early intervention with dexmedetomidine would accelerate agitation resolution.

Methods: We read clinical notes in an electronic medical records system with natural language processing to identify patients with agitation. We obtained their demographics, trajectories, associations, and outcomes. We used g-formulas to study the possible effects of dexmedetomidine on agitation resolution and key outcomes.

Results: We screened 7525 patients. Overall, 2242 patients (29.8%) developed within-intensive care unit agitation, and 2052 (27.3%) were eligible for inclusion in the target trial emulation, with 314 treated with dexmedetomidine. Dexmedetomidine-treated patients had more severe illness and were more likely to have unplanned emergency admissions with medical diagnoses. However, they achieved higher rates of resolution of within-intensive care unit agitation (94% versus 72%; p < 0.001) and lower 30-day mortality (5% versus 9%; p = 0.033). Early initiation of dexmedetomidine accelerated the resolution of agitation (risk ratio [RR] 1.13 [95%CI 1.03 - 1.21]; risk difference [RD] 9.8% [95%CI 2.6% - 15.4%]); extubation by Day 30 (RR 1.03 [95%CI 1.02 - 1.04]; RD 3.1% [95%CI 2.2% - 4.2%]); and reduced the chance of having a tracheostomy by Day 30 (RR 0.67 [95%CI 0.34 - 0.99]; RD -3.5% [95%CI -7.0% - -0.0%]).

Conclusion: Through target trial emulation analysis, early dexmedetomidine was associated with an increased rate of resolution of agitation and extubation and decreased tracheostomy risk.

Respect for autonomy and human vulnerability are bioethical principles that are frequently involved in decision-making dilemmas in the context of critical care. Multiple challenges are involved in the tasks of assessing and respecting the autonomy of critically ill patients with respect to the critical illness in question, patients' cognitive status and the context of intensive care units; furthermore, time constraints and emotional stress complicate decision-making for all stakeholders in this context. In addition, critically ill patients are inherently vulnerable to multiple sources of potential unintended harm. Therefore, clinicians working in intensive care units must develop the skills necessary to acknowledge, assess and mitigate those risks. In this manuscript, we review the literature on this topic. We also propose a practical approach that can help overcome some of those challenges; specifically, we advocate for the adoption of a relational approach to autonomy and shared decision-making, which could help overcome those challenges, thereby promoting more effective and ethical patient care.

Objective: To perform a cross-cultural adaptation of the State Behavioral Scale to Brazilian Portuguese, assess its psychometric quality and use the scale to evaluate the level of sedation of patients on mechanical ventilation in the pediatric intensive care unit of a tertiary care hospital.

Methods: After receiving authorization by the main author, the State Behavioral Scale was adapted according to the following steps: translation of the original version into Portuguese; synthesis of the Portuguese versions; evaluation by a committee of judges; reverse translation by native speakers of the source language; synthesis of retroversions; pretest; and evaluation of psychometric quality.

Results: The adapted scale was administered to 20 patients by four evaluators, who performed daily evaluations in pairs simultaneously and independently. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.939 (p < 0.001) for the State Behavioral Scale and 0.976 (p < 0.001) for the COMFORT-B scale. The two scales were strongly correlated, with Spearman coefficients ranging from 0.884 to 0.908 (p < 0.001). In the study sample, most children (n = 43 observations; 48.9%) had scores of -1 (responsive to light touch or voice) or 0 (awake and able to calm down), which corresponded to light sedation.

Conclusion: The translated and adapted version of the State Behavioral Scale showed high interrater agreement and high correlation with the COMFORT-B scale. The application of the scale showed an adequate level of sedation in most patients.

Introduction: In patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), mortality risk is typically assessed using the arterial partial pressure of oxygen (PaO2) divided by the fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2), known as the PaO2/FiO2 ratio. Recently, the SpO2/FiO2 ratio, which uses peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2) instead of PaO2, has been suggested as a reasonable alternative when there is little access to arterial blood gas analyses. Additionally, equations that predict PaO2 from SpO2 values could offer another viable method for assessment.

Aim: To evaluate the accuracy of methods for predicting PaO2 from SpO2 values and compare risk stratification based on measured versus predicted PaO2/FiO2 ratios using a large database that harmonizes the individual data of patients included in four observational studies.

Methods and analysis: The individual data from four observational studies ('Epidemiology of Respiratory Insufficiency in Critical Care study' [ERICC], 'Large Observational Study to Understand the Global Impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Failure' [LUNG SAFE], 'PRactice of VENTilation in critically ill patients without ARDS' [PRoVENT], and 'PRactice of VENTilation in critically ill patients in Middle-income Countries' [PRoVENT-iMiC]) were harmonized and pooled into a database named 'PRoPERLy II'. The primary endpoint of this planned analysis will be the accuracy of currently available methods to predict PaO2 from SpO2 values. The secondary endpoint will be the accuracy of classification based on SpO2/FiO2 ratio and the predicted PaO2/FiO2 ratio.

Dissemination: Our planned analysis addresses a clinically important research question by comparing different equations for predicting PaO2 from SpO2 values.