[Prognostic factors in resuscitation].
The outcome from intensive care is known to be influenced by such factors as age, previous health status, severity of the disease and diagnosis. In order to assess the influence of each individual factor, 3,687 patients from 38 French intensive care units were studied. For each patient were recorded: age, simplified acute physiological score (SAPS), previous health status, diagnosis, type of intensive care unit (medicine, scheduled or elective surgery) and immediate outcome. Each of these factors was found to influence the immediate survival rate. A multivariate analysis ranked the factors in the following order: SAPS, age, type of intensive care unit and previous health status. Diagnosis played a role in the prognosis since with a 10-15 points SAPS mortality was nil for drug overdose, 12 per cent for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and 38 per cent for cardiogenic shock. However, a single diagnosis was made in only 37 per cent of the patients, as against 3 diagnoses in 17 per cent and 4 diagnoses or more in 7 per cent. When the type of intensive care unit was considered, the mean death rate was 20 per cent in medicine, 27 per cent in scheduled surgery and 5 per cent in elective surgery (P less than 0.001). Since this study showed a definite influence of each of the four factors on immediate survival, intensive care patients can be described and classified according to this system. However, it must be stressed that individual prognoses are extremely vague.