Clinical conditions and complications associated with parenteral nutrition use in critically ill patients admitted to an intensive care unit of a general hospital

Objective: the aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical conditions, the existing complications, and the drug prescription profile of patients who received parenteral nutrition in the intensive care unit. Material and methods: this retrospective, analytical cohort study was carried out among individuals admitted to a public general hospital ICU. For data collection, the electronic medical records for the entire period of inpatient treatment were analyzed. Results: in total, 213 individuals who had received parenteral nutrition for a period greater than 48 hours were included in the study. Most participants were male and mean age was < 60 years; death occurred in 75 % of patients, and abdominal surgery was the main indication for parenteral nutrition. Hyperglycemia was the most common complication. The Mann-Whitney test showed that the individuals who died were using a higher number of medications. The increased use of medications correlated with use of PN and led to an increase in hospital length of stay and death rate (p-value < 0.001). There was a higher proportion of deaths among patients using standard parenteral nutrition solutions (76.9 %) as compared to the period when patients started receiving custom-made parenteral nutrition solutions (71.7 %). However, there was no statistical evidence of the association between type of nutrition and the outcome of death (p-value = 0.395). Conclusions: custom-made parenteral nutrition may result in benefits for the patients, such as a decrease in the number of medications used. The relationship between type of nutrition and the outcome of death did not prove to be statistically significant.