The association of the COVID-19 pandemic and short-term outcomes of non-COVID-19 critically ill patients: an observational cohort study in Brazilian ICUs

PURPOSE: To assess whether intensive care unit (ICU) outcomes for patients not affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study including prospectively collected information of patients admitted to 165 ICUs in a hospital network in Brazil between 2011 and 2020. Association between admission in 2020 and worse hospital outcomes was performed using different techniques, including assessment of changes in illness severity of admitted patients, a variable life-adjusted display of mortality during 2020, a multivariate mixed regression model with admission year as both fixed effect and random slope adjusted for SAPS 3 score, an analysis of trends in performance using standardized mortality ratio (SMR) and standardized resource use (SRU), and perturbation analysis. RESULTS: A total of 644,644 admissions were considered. After excluding readmissions and patients with COVID-19, 514,219 patients were available for analysis. Non-COVID-19 patients admitted in 2020 had slightly lower age and SAPS 3 score but a higher mortality (6.4%) when compared with previous years (2019: 5.6%; 2018: 6.1%). Variable-adjusted life display (VLAD) in 2020 increased but started to decrease as the number of COVID-19 cases increased; this trend reversed as number of COVID cases reduced but recurred on the second wave. After logistic regression, being admitted in 2020 was associated with higher mortality when compared to previous years from 2016 and 2019. Individual ICUs standardized mortality ratio also increased during 2020 (higher SMR) while resource use remained constant, suggesting worsening performance. A perturbation analysis further confirmed changes in ICU outcomes for non-COVID-19 patients. CONCLUSION: Hospital outcomes of non-COVID-19 critically ill patients worsened during the pandemic in 2020, possibly resulting in an increased number of deaths in critically ill non-COVID patients. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00134-021-06528-6.