Purpose: The purposes of the study were to examine the incidence of diarrhea and to explore influencing factors to the occurrence of diarrhea in patients admitted to intensive care unit.
Methods: The retrospective research design was applied to collect the data from electronic medical records. Total of 142 patients admitted to ICU from september 2014 to august 2015 in an university hospital were screened based on inclusion criteria.
Statistical analysis were conducted by SPSSWIN 22.0 program for descriptive analysis, t-test, Chi-square test, correlation, multiple regression and Logistic regression.
Results: The incidence of diarrhea was 53.5% and occurred in 76 patients. Diarrhea occurred in 4.54 days (SD = 5.99) from the first day of ICU admission, and in average lasts for 1.79 days (SD = 2.63). The average of the total frequency of diarrhea was 5.56±9.67 times.
Increased ICU stay(t=-5.014, p <.001), enteral feeding(χ2=8.475, p=.004) and infection state (χ2= 14.093, p <.001) were significant predictors of the occurrence of diarrhea. Age, ICU stay, APACHE Ⅱ score, department, ventilator, enteral feeding and infection state were significant predictors of diarrhea. ICU stay was the significant influence factor of days to the occurrence of diarrhea. ICU stay, APACHE Ⅱ score and enteral feeding were significant predictors of the duration and the frequency of diarrhea. The infection state, enteral feeding were significant predictors of the diarrhea in ICU. Infection increased risk of diarrhea 3.4times higher (p=.002) than those without infection. Enteral feeding also increased risk of diarrhea 2.2 times higher(p=.041) than those who did not receive enteral feeding.
Conclusion: Diarrhea in ICU patients occurred by multiple factors and preventive strategies should consider various related factors accordingly. Infection control should be emphasized, and close monitoring on diarrhea should be provided for those with enteral feeding. Further studies are warranted to determine standardized clinical definition of diarrhea and to explore diarrhea risk factors in critical care settings.