OBJECTIVE:

To identify the causes, clinical course and outcome of patients with prolonged stay in the intensive care unit of a third level gyneco-obstetric care center.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Retrolective, cross-sectional, descriptive case series study conducted in the intensive care unit of the Unidad Médica de Alta Especialidad Hospital de Gineco-Obstetricia 3 del Centro Médico Nacional La Raza del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico City, in patients admitted between January 2016 and December 2019. Only the records of patients with defined prolonged stay were consulted: time in days, with two standard deviations above the overall mean. We studied the reasons for admission, causes that conditioned the prolonged stay and the outcome.

RESULTS:

Thirty-four patients with prolonged stay were studied, representing 2.23% of the total number of cases in the intensive care unit. Reasons for admission: pregnancy complications 20 out of 34, complications of genitourinary system surgery 7 out of 34 and also 7 out of 34 with surgical complications of pelvi-abdominal malignant tumors. Prolonged stay in the intensive care unit, on average, was 11.99 ± 4.21 days, conditioned by reinterventions for bleeding 9 of 34, acute kidney injury 7 of 34, multiorgan failure 5 of 34, hypertensive decontrol 4 of 34, reinterventions for infection 3 of 34, unpacking 3 of 34, mechanical ventilation 2 of 34 and diabetic ketoacidosis 1 of 34. Mortality occurred in 2 cases (urogenital intraoperative bleeding n = 1 and abdominal game sepsis n = 1).

CONCLUSIONS:

Cases with prolonged length of stay represented a small percentage, the main causes were multifactorial, and the frequency of mortality was low.