epidemiology and descriptive analysis of neuro-critical care unit; shiraz, south of iran

background: neurocritical intensive care units (nicus) have been provided as new sub-special intensive care wards to give more special services for patients with acute neurology problems. as we know, there is no organized database about epidemiology of nicu patients in our country. population-based assessment (even in a small population) could be a starting point to achieve an insight about neuro-critical ill patients in our area. methods: this study is a retrospective cross-sectional study. we included all patients admitted in our nicu, a subspecialty neurology center in the south of iran. the patients' hospital charts were used for gathering data. spss version 18.0 (spss inc, chicago, illinois) was used for statistical analysis. results: from a total of 130 patients, 68 (52.3%) were male and 62 (47.7%) female. their mean age was 53.7±18.9 years. cva was the most common cause of icu admission (50% of total patients) and status epilepticus was the least (8.5%). the discharge- death ratio was 2.6. 84 patients (64.6%) were admitted for less than 14 days and 46 (35.4%) for more than 14 days. 85 (65.4%) patients took ventilator support with the mean duration of 8.29±10 days. conclusion: our findings provide an introduction into nicu field in our area. it could help us asses the effectiveness of our health care system and may additionally serve new planning for future needs to improve our general and neuro-icus. however, much research with larger patients’ population is required for better definition of details.