The burden, management startegies adopted and outcomes of severe respiratory tract infections in intensive units- wessex clinical research collaboration from wessex intensive care resarch network

Critical-illnesses are a heterogeneous group of medical conditions that cause significant morbidity and mortality. Among patients admitted with critical-illness to critical care units, hospital mortality is approximately 20%. However, there are several factors that influence not only patient survival but also recovery from the acute insult itself. Disease specific long-term outcomes corrected for several confounding factors are rarely reported. In the UK, a national audit office (Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre - ICNARC) collects data from most intensive care units and publish outcome data intermittently. However, this is not informative with regards to long-term mortality and may not be applicable to our local population. This study aims to retrospectively measure long-term outcomes (up to 3 years) for adult patients (>18 years old) with specific critical illnesses within a single, tertiary centre. Moreover, we want to analyse the impact of specific patient factors, disease types and intensive care unit interventions on overall patient outcomes. Specifically: The epidemiology of normal lung microbiome and pathogenic organisms, combined with the demographics of severe respiratory tract infections in the ICU; Assess the impact of oxygen, fluid, nutrition, corticosteroids, and the use of adjunct therapies (E.g. but not limited to prone positioning, NIV, mechanical ventilation); Antimicrobial practices, biomarkers/guideline use for antimicrobial stewardship, and developing resistant patterns in the ICU; to evaluate patient survival, hospital/ICU length of stay, readmission and post-ICU complications and to evaluate research participation of patients with acute respiratory infections in the ICU.