Sequential organ failure assessment score for predicting outcome of severely ill obstetric patients admitted to intensive care unit

Background and Aim: Severe maternal illness is a life-threatening condition for pregnant women and often requires admission into the ICU. The aim was to evaluate the performance of maximum sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score to predict the outcome of patients admitted to ICU. Material and Methods: This prospective study was done on 121 consecutive women with severe obstetric illness admitted to the ICU during one year. Basic demographic, obstetrical data, indication of admission to ICU and interventions done were noted. SOFA score was evaluated according to the worst score for each of its six components every 24 hr till discharge or death in ICU. The receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve was constructed to predict the outcome of ICU. For analysis, patients were categorized as survivors and non-survivors. Results: Out of 121 patients admitted, 65 survived and 56 died with mortality rate of 45.9%. There were no differences among survivor and non-survivor patients regarding demographic data, obstetrical data and interventions done, but anaemia and inadequate ante natal care was more common in non survivors. ICU utilisation rate of obstetric patients was 1.9%. Most patients were admitted due to obstetric causes (87.6%), mainly for hypertensive disorders (46%) and were post caesarean (84.29%). Total maximum SOFA scores were higher in non-survivors than in survivors (14.09 ± 5.53 vs 7.47 ± 4.58, P