Background:
As the epidemic of obesity spreads throughout the United States, an increasing number of obese patients are seen in the intensive care unit. Management of these patients can be challenging; however, it is unclear how the presence of obesity affects patient care and outcome in the ICU. To address this question, we began a study to identify the body mass index (BMI) of patients admitted to the MICU and to determine the association with various indicators of outcome.
Methods:
The study was a retrospective cross‐sectional study using an existing database of an 800‐bed inner‐city municipal hospital. Data on patients admitted to the MICU service between October 1, 2005, and March 30, 2007, were obtained from the hospital's health outcomes center APACHE database. Study variables requested included patient name, race, and sex; admit age and AP3 score; ICU LOS (in days ); ICU and hospital discharge status; and location. Patient charts were reviewed for documented height and weight at MICU admission. Online calculators were used to obtain BMIs, which were categorized according to the Centers for Disease Control definition as underweight (BMI < 18.5), normal (BMI 18.5‐24.9), overweight (BMI 25‐29.9), and obese (BMI ≥ 30).
Table 1. Hospital Discharge Outcome
Results:
A preliminary sample of the ongoing chart review yielded a total of 261 patients with data for BMI calculation. The study sample included 124 women (48%) and 137 men (52%); 79% were African American, mean age at time of MICU admission was 55 ± 15 years. BMI ranged from 12.6 to 99.4 (mean 29 ± 12).
Conclusions:
In this preliminary sample, the variables of LOS and AP3 of obese patients did not appear to be greater than those of patients of normal weight. Obese patients did not appear to have worse outcome indicators than normal patients. Taking into consideration diagnosis and possible further analysis of a larger sample may elicit more differences than are currently shown.
Author Disclosure:
B. George, none.