Sepsis is an important cause of pediatric morbidity and mortality, especially in low-income countries. Data on regional prevalence, mortality trends, and their relationship with socioeconomic variables are scarce.
Objective: to determine the regional prevalence, mortality, and sociodemographic situation of patients diagnosed with severe sepsis (SS) and septic shock (SSh) admitted to Pediatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs).
Patients and method: patients aged 1 to 216 months admitted to 47 participating PICUs with a diagnosis of SS or SSh between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2018, were included. Secondary analysis was performed on the Argentine Society of Intensive Care Benchmarking Quality Program (SATI-Q) database for SS and SSh and a review of the annual reports of the Argentine Ministry of Health and the National Institute of Statistics and Census for the sociodemographic indices of the respective years.
Results: 45,480 admissions were recorded in 47 PICUs, 3,777 of them with a diagnosis of SS and SSh. The combined prevalence of SS and SSh decreased from 9.9% in 2010 to 6.6% in 2018. The combined mortality decreased from 34.5% to 23.5%. Multivariate analysis showed that the Odds ratio (OR) of the association between SS and SSh mortality was 1.88 (95% CI: 1.46-2.32) and 2.4 (95% CI: 2.16-2.66), respectively, adjusted for malignant disease, PIM2, and mechanical ventilation. The prevalence of SS and SSh in different health regions (HR) was associated with the percentage of poverty and infant mortality rate (p < 0.001). However, there was no association between sepsis mortality and HR adjusted for PIM2.
Conclusions: Prevalence and mortality of SS and SSh have decreased over time in the participating PICUs. Lower socioeconomic conditions were associated with higher prevalence but similar sepsis outcomes.