Patient destination after discharge from intensive care units: wards or intermediate care units?

This study characterizes patients hospitalized in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) of hospitals that have intermediate units (IU) regarding their demographic and clinical data and identifies factors related to discharge from these units. This prospective longitudinal study involved 600 adult patients hospitalized in general ICUs in four hospitals in São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Demographic and clinical characteristics were similar to those found in other studies addressing patients hospitalized in ICUs. Factors associated with discharge from ICU to IU were: age > or = 60 years, diseases related to the nervous, circulatory or respiratory systems, originated from the IU, and Simplified Acute Physiologic Score II (SAPS II), Logistic Organ Dysfunction (LODS) and Nursing Activities Scores (NAS) at admission and discharge from the ICU. Age and risk of death at admission in the ICU, according to SAPS II, stood out as indicators of discharge to IUs in the Multiple Logistic Regression analysis.

[Therapeutic intervention scoring system-28 (TISS-28): directions for application]. / Therapeutic intervention scoring system-28 (TISS-28): diretrizes para aplicação.

Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System-28 (TISS-28) is a tool that enables the measurement of the nursing work load in Intensive Care Units and the estimate of how grave the disease is. In this study are presented the operational definitions for its application, proposed by a group of specialists in the area, with the aim of rendering uniform the meaning of each of the items and preventing interpretation biases.

[Simplified version of the therapeutic intervention scoring system and its prognostic value]. / A versão simplificada do therapeutic intervention scoring system e seu valor prognóstico.

The study evaluates the competence of the "TISS-28" to distinguish inpatients at the ICU, between the ones likely to die from the ones likely to survive and to establish a threshold score for high likelihood to death. The findings obtained by the sample of 200 inpatients at 14 ICUs in Sao Paulo County showed that the TISS-28 presented association with mortality (p=0.0001). The cutting score established was 21. It was found that 80.88% of those who died had the TISS-28 score similar or higher and 68.18% of survivors had the score below 21. Furthermore, regarding to the prognostic value of TISS-28, it was showed up the accuracy of 0.72.