Table 1 Demographic and baseline characteristics for diarrhoea and non-diarrhoea groups.

From: Diarrhoea in the critically ill is common, associated with poor outcome and rarely due to Clostridium difficile

 

Admissions with Diarrhoea a (N = 1207)

Admissions with No Diarrhoea a (N = 8124)

P -value

Age [mean (standard deviation)]

60.8 (16.5)

58.3 (17.8)

<0.001

Male sex

678 (56.2%)

4457 (54.9%)

0.40

Referring Specialty

 Medical

726 (60.1%)

2358 (29.0%)

<0.001

 Surgical

481 (39.9%)

5766 (71.0%)

 

APACHE II scoreb  [median (interquartile range)]

22 (17–28)

16 (11–21)

<0.001

Reason for Intensive Care Unit admission

 Cardiovascular

109 (9.0%)

487 (6.0%)

<0.001

 Respiratory failure

351 (29.1%)

878 (10.8%)

<0.001

 Haemorrhage

81 (6.7%)

556 (6.8%)

0.85

 Sepsis

200 (16.6%)

455 (5.6%)

<0.001

 Renal failure

67 (5.6%)

138 (1.7%)

<0.001

 Operative intervention

228 (18.9%)

4735 (58.3%)

<0.001

 Neurological

91 (7.5%)

534 (6.6%)

0.20

 Haematological

40 (3.3%)

99 (1.2%)

<0.001

 Liver failure

17 (1.4%)

60 (0.7%)

0.03

 Other

23 (1.9%)

182 (2.2%)

0.53

  1. aData shown as N (%) unless stated otherwise.
  2. bAcute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II score.