Acute kidney injury in children: incidence, awareness and outcome—a retrospective cohort study

The primary objective was to determine the epidemiologic influence of AKI awareness among physicians in a mixt paediatric population, including neonates. This single-centre, multiyear, observational retrospective study included all admitted patients between first of July 2014 and 31 December 2021. AKI was identified in 2194 patients out of the 128,036 hospital admissions with 129,936 serum creatinine measurements. Matching comparisons were used between AKI aware and AKI non-aware patients. The overall incidence of AKI was 1.65%. Stage 1 was identified in 24.24% of the AKI cases, stage 2 in 31.03% and stage 3 in 44.71%. The most prevalent cause of AKI was represented by prerenal AKI in 85.64% of the cases, followed by 12.16% renal causes respectively 2.18% postrenal causes. Exposure to sepsis, critical illness, hypovolemic shock and mechanical ventilation increased mortality by 2.09, 4.69, 4.64- and 4.93-times (p = 0.001). Cancer and heart failure increased mortality by 4.22 (p < 0.001) respectively 2.17 times (p = 0.001). The presence of AKI increased mortality by 79.11 times while only half of the AKI associated deaths were recognized by physicians. AKI increased hospitalization more than 4 times the average stay. AKI awareness was dependent of lower age and severity. Also, awareness increased mortality and prolonged hospitalization. 1 in 3 neonates and 1 in 4 children were AKI aware. The physician’s awareness of AKI diagnosis is in general low due to lack of appliance of current guidelines in exploring exposures and susceptibilities for AKI screening.