Authors: Kamel Senouci Patrice Guerrini Eloi Diene Alain Atinault Jacky Claquin Francis Bonnet Philippe Tuppin
Publish Date: 2003/08/16
Volume: 30, Issue: 1, Pages: 38-44
Abstract
During the study period hospital staff completed a form for each patient with a GCS less than 8 Hospital information units provided us with statistics from the discharge forms The characteristics of the hospitals were also recorded We included a total of 792 patients with a GCS less than 8 120 of these patients were diagnosed as being clinically brain dead 151 These patients accounted for 118 of the comatose patients in ICUs 117 of the deaths occurring in ICUs and 33 of the deaths that occurred in the hospital during the study period Two multivariate linear regressions were performed to predict the number of clinically brain dead patients in the ICUs The regression analyses included causes of death or causes of coma and hospital characteristics The presence of a coordination team and the number of transplant coordinators were positively associated with the number of brain dead patients in both models The number of patients carried to the ICU by a mobile emergency unit was also positively associated in the model with causes of comaThe authors gratefully acknowledge the participation of the ICUs and medical information units especially Dr Louis Brunel Direction de linformatique médicale Assistance Publique des Hôpitaux de Paris who constructed a special computer program to collect data from the discharge forms for all patients hospitalized in the participating ICUs
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