OBJECTIVE To estimate direct medical costs of diarrheal hospitalization of children <5 years admitted in pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) or high dependency unit (HDU). METHODS Analysis of medical records and hospital bills of 84 children during two time frames, 2005-08 and 2012-14. RESULTS Direct medical costs in PICU increased from INR 17,941 to INR 50,663 per child for rotavirus diar...

BACKGROUND Despite considerable efforts, engaging staff to lead quality improvement activities in practice settings is a persistent challenge. At British Columbia Children's Hospital (BCCH), the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) undertook a new phase of quality improvement actions based on the Community of Practice (CoP) model with Participatory Action Research (PAR). This approach aims to m...

Oral hygiene significantly affects children's well being. It is an integral part of intensive and critical care nursing because intubated and ventilated children in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) are dependent on the health care team to tend to their everyday basic needs. Fourteen articles were identified as being relevant to pediatric oral care in the PICU. These articles were subseq...

BACKGROUND Cannabis use is a major problem in inner cities and has been causally implicated in psychosis. Very few of the available hospital-based studies of the implications of cannabis usage have involved psychiatric intensive care units (PICU); but PICU receive many of the most challenging and resource-hungry-and incompletely understood-patients in the mental health system. AIMS To study t...

BACKGROUND Acute lung injury (ALI)/acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) represents a devastating complication observed in critical care medicine. The purpose of this study is to investigate the epidemiological aspects of ALI/ARDS in pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and risk factors of mortality. METHODS Patients with ALI/ARDS in PICU of Beijing Children's Hospital, a tertiary medica...

OBJECTIVE Echocardiography has become an indispensable bedside diagnostic tool in the realm of pediatric intensive care units (PICU). It has proven to be an influential factor in the formula of clinical decision-making. This study aimed to delineate the impact of echocardiography on the management of critically ill pediatric patients in the PICU at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Oman. MET...

BACKGROUND Previous research investigating the relationship between the time of admission and mortality rates has yielded inconsistent results and has not been conducted in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) patient population. OBJECTIVE To determine whether an association between the time of admission (weekday versus weekend and daytime versus evening) and the risk of death exists amon...

The pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) poses unique pain and sedation management challenges. Treatment of pain and anxiety in the PICU has historically been accomplished with opioids and benzodiazepines. More recently, drug therapy has been complemented with sedation scales and nonpharmacologic treatment measures, such as parental presence at the bedside and psychologic interventions (i.e. di...