BACKGROUND Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (PICU) have been part of most inpatient psychiatric services for some time, although information about their functioning and outcome has not previously been collated. AIM To conduct a systematic literature review to assess the current state of knowledge about such services. METHOD A search of electronic databases was undertaken, followed by obtain...

Pediatric intensive care (PICU) nurses play a crucial role in managing children’s pain. While virtual patient (VP) technology has shown significant benefits in assisting with the practice of healthcare, there has been little research effort in this particular setting. This paper presents a pilot evaluation study to determine the validity of VP vignettes including PICU nurses’ recognition of the...

INTRODUCTION Intensive care of infants below one year of age has been centralized in a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) related to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Rigshospitalet, the University Hospital in Copenhagen in eastern Denmark (approximately 2.5 million inhabitants) since 2002. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the experiences from the PICU. MATERIAL AND METHODS A...

INTRODUCTION Neopterin and biopterin are sub-products of redox reactions, which act as cofactors of enzymes responsible for nitric oxide production. The hypothesis is presented that plasma neopterin and biopterin evolve differently during the first days in a critically ill child. METHODS A single-centre prospective observational study was conducted on patients 7 days to 14 years admitted to o...

Healthy physiological systems exhibit marked signal variability and complexity, whereas diseased systems generally show a loss of variability, decreased complexity ("decomplexification"), and increased regularity. The goal of this study was to evaluate the uncoupling and recoupling phenomenon in children with septic shock by observing serial changes in heart rate variability metrics. Data were ...

Background Information given to families in an intensive care unit (ICU) is an ethical requirement and a medical necessity. In a pediatric area, the relationship between the physician and the patient is transformed into a triangular relationship which comprises "medical team patient and parents. Indeed, family satisfaction is a goal that fits into the overall improvement of quality of care in a...

Internationally, research on psychiatric intensive care units (PICUs) commonly reports results from demographic studies such as criteria for admission, need for involuntary treatment, and the occurrence of violent behaviour. A few international studies describe the caring aspect of the PICUs based specifically on caregivers' experiences. The concept of PICU in Sweden is not clearly defined. The...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS An association of high lactate levels with mortality has been found in adult patients with septic shock. However, there is controversial literature regarding the same in children. The aim of this study was to find the correlation of serum lactate levels in pediatric septic shock with survival. SETTINGS AND DESIGN This was a prospective observational study at PICU of a tert...

BACKGROUND/AIMS The recent improvements of management of patients in pediatric intensive care units (PICU) are associated with improved outcome. However, this decrease in mortality is associated with an increased number of children with acute kidney injury (AKI), especially in patients with multiorgan failure. METHODS The report presents a retrospective analysis of 25 cases of AKI (assessed b...

OBJECTIVE Prediction of survival and mortality rates in costly environments such as the intensive care unit (ICU) is of great importance for the assessment of new treatments, resource consumption control, and improvement of quality control. This study aimed to determine the ability to predict mortality and discharge rate of patients using the FOUR score in the pediatric ICU (PICU) of Ali Ibn Ab...