Early mobilisation in critically ill COVID-19 patients: a subanalysis of the ESICM-initiated UNITE-COVID observational study.

Kloss P, Lindholz M, Milnik A, Azoulay E, Cecconi M, Citerio G, De Corte T, Duska F, Galarza L, Greco M, Girbes ARJ, Kesecioglu J, Mellinghoff J, Ostermann M, Pellegrini M, Teboul J, De Waele J, Wong A, Schaller SJ, ESICM UNITE COVID Investigators

Ann Intensive Care 13 (1) 112 [2023-11-14; online 2023-11-14]

Early mobilisation (EM) is an intervention that may improve the outcome of critically ill patients. There is limited data on EM in COVID-19 patients and its use during the first pandemic wave. This is a pre-planned subanalysis of the ESICM UNITE-COVID, an international multicenter observational study involving critically ill COVID-19 patients in the ICU between February 15th and May 15th, 2020. We analysed variables associated with the initiation of EM (within 72 h of ICU admission) and explored the impact of EM on mortality, ICU and hospital length of stay, as well as discharge location. Statistical analyses were done using (generalised) linear mixed-effect models and ANOVAs. Mobilisation data from 4190 patients from 280 ICUs in 45 countries were analysed. 1114 (26.6%) of these patients received mobilisation within 72 h after ICU admission; 3076 (73.4%) did not. In our analysis of factors associated with EM, mechanical ventilation at admission (OR 0.29; 95% CI 0.25, 0.35; p = 0.001), higher age (OR 0.99; 95% CI 0.98, 1.00; p ≤ 0.001), pre-existing asthma (OR 0.84; 95% CI 0.73, 0.98; p = 0.028), and pre-existing kidney disease (OR 0.84; 95% CI 0.71, 0.99; p = 0.036) were negatively associated with the initiation of EM. EM was associated with a higher chance of being discharged home (OR 1.31; 95% CI 1.08, 1.58; p = 0.007) but was not associated with length of stay in ICU (adj. difference 0.91 days; 95% CI - 0.47, 1.37, p = 0.34) and hospital (adj. difference 1.4 days; 95% CI - 0.62, 2.35, p = 0.24) or mortality (OR 0.88; 95% CI 0.7, 1.09, p = 0.24) when adjusted for covariates. Our findings demonstrate that a quarter of COVID-19 patients received EM. There was no association found between EM in COVID-19 patients' ICU and hospital length of stay or mortality. However, EM in COVID-19 patients was associated with increased odds of being discharged home rather than to a care facility. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04836065 (retrospectively registered April 8th 2021).

Category: Other

Category: Public Health

Type: Journal article

PubMed 37962748

DOI 10.1186/s13613-023-01201-1

Crossref 10.1186/s13613-023-01201-1

pmc: PMC10645963
pii: 10.1186/s13613-023-01201-1
ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04836065
Data curation pipeline and data dictionaries for patient data extracted for medical record up to 60th day of ICU stay (written in R, Version v3.0.1 used).


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