Complications that increase the time of Hospitalization at ICU of patients submitted to cardiac surgery.

OBJECTIVE To show the complications that increase the permanence at intensive care unit (ICU) of the patients submitted to cardiac surgery. METHODS Eighty-five handbooks of patients submitted to cardiac surgery had been analyzed, retrospectively, from March to May 2009 at Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Juiz de Fora (MG)--Brazil--and 14 (16.47%) patients had been studied. They remained more than 5 days at ICU. In 85 patients occurred three deaths: two patients operated in urgency character and this increases the morbidity; one patient who remained in mechanical ventilation (MV) by 21 days. RESULTS Complications that had increased the time of hospitalization at ICU had been respiratory and metabolic in accordance with literature. CONCLUSION Complications that increase the time of permanence at ICU are those related to respiratory function, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, tabagism, pulmonary congestion, time of permanence under MV, diabetes, infections, renal insufficiency, stroke and hemodynamic instability.