Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Coma Prevalence in Critical Care Units in Chile: Results of a Cross-Sectional Survey on World Coma Day

  • Original work
  • Published:
Neurocritical Care Aims and scope Submit manuscript

An Invited Commentary to this article was published on 26 April 2024

Abstract

Background

The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of coma among patients in critical care units in Chile. We also aimed to provide insight into the demographic characteristics, etiologies, and complications associated with coma.

Methods

A single day cross-sectional study was conducted through a national survey of public and private hospitals with critical and intensive cardiac care units across Chile. Data were collected using an online questionnaire that contained questions regarding critically ill patients’ information, demographic characteristics, etiology and duration of coma, medical complications, and support requirements.

Results

A total of 84% of all health facilities answered, accounting for a total of 2,708 patients. The overall coma prevalence was 2.9%. The median age of the comatose patients was 61 years (interquartile range 50–72) and 66.2% were male. The median coma duration was five days (interquartile range 2–9). Cerebral hemorrhage was the most common etiology, followed by severe hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, acute ischemic stroke, and traumatic brain injury. A total of 48.1% of coma patients experienced acute and ongoing treatment complications, with pneumonia being the most common complication, and 97.4% required support during comatose management.

Conclusions

This study provides an overview of the prevalence of coma in Chilean critical and cardiac care units. Coma is a common condition. Comatose patients frequently experience medical complications during their hospitalization.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Helbok R, Rass V, Beghi E, et al. The curing coma campaign international survey on coma epidemiology, evaluation, and therapy (COME TOGETHER). Neurocrit Care. 2022;37(1):47–59.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Kondziella D, Amiri M, Othman MH, et al. Incidence and prevalence of coma in the UK and the USA. Brain Commun. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcac188/6673810.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Masson F, Thicoipe M, Mokni T, et al. Epidemiology of traumatic comas: A prospective population-based study. Brain Inj. 2003;17(4):279–93.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Bruno MA, Laureys S, Demertzi A. Coma and disorders of consciousness. In: Handbook of Clinical Neurology. Elsevier B.V.; 2013; 205–13.

  5. Mar J, Arrospide A, Begiristain JM, Larrañaga I, Elosegui E, Oliva-Moreno J. The impact of acquired brain damage in terms of epidemiology, economics and loss in quality of life. BMC Neurol. 2011;11:46.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Bruyneel A, Larcin L, Martins D, Van Den Bulcke J, Leclercq P, Pirson M. Cost comparisons and factors related to cost per stay in intensive care units in Belgium. BMC Health Serv Res 2023;23(1).

  7. Gwer S, Chacha C, Newton CR, Idro R. Childhood acute non-traumatic coma: Aetiology and challenges in management in resource-poor countries of Africa and Asia. Paediatr Int Child Health. 2013;33(3):129–38.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Weiss N, Regard L, Vidal C, et al. Causes of coma and their evolution in the medical intensive care unit. J Neurol. 2012;259(7):1474–7.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Stevens RD, Bhardwaj A. Approach to the comatose patient. Crit Care Med. 2006;34(1):31–41.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Newman J, Blake K, Fennema J, et al. Incidence, predictors and outcomes of postoperative coma: An observational study of 858 606 patients. Eur J Anaesthesiol. 2013;30(8):476–82.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Curing Coma - Neurocritical Care Society. Cited 2023 Oct 14; Available from: https://www.curingcoma.org/

  12. Our Country—Gob.cl. Cited 2023 Oct 14; Available from: https://www.gob.cl/en/our-country/

  13. Oliveira SC de, Machado CV, Hein ARA, Almeida PF de. Relações público-privadas no sistema de saúde do Chile: regulação, financiamento e provisão de serviços. Cien Saude Colet 2021. Cited 2023 Oct 14; 26(10):4529–40. Available from: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1413-81232021001004529&tlng=pt

  14. Ministerio de Salud Chile. Informe Unidad de Gestión de Camas Críticas 2018.

  15. Harris PA, Taylor R, Minor BL, et al. The REDCap consortium: Building an international community of software platform partners. J Biomed Inform. 2019;95.

  16. Harris PA, Taylor R, Thielke R, Payne J, Gonzalez N, Conde JG. Research electronic data capture (REDCap)-A metadata-driven methodology and workflow process for providing translational research informatics support. J Biomed Inform. 2009;42(2):377–81.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Coulter F, McCarthy G, O’Sullivan I. Coma and impaired consciousness in a trauma centre. Emerg Med J. 2010;27(6):417.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Schmidt WU, Ploner CJ, Lutz M, Möckel M, Lindner T, Braun M. Causes of brain dysfunction in acute coma: A cohort study of 1027 patients in the emergency department. Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med 2019;27(1).

  19. Bagnato S, Boccagni C, Sant’Angelo A, Fingelkurts AA, Fingelkurts AA, Galardi G. Longitudinal Assessment of Clinical Signs of Recovery in Patients with Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome after Traumatic or Nontraumatic Brain Injury. J Neurotrauma 2017;34(2):535–9.

  20. Horsting MWB, Franken MD, Meulenbelt J, van Klei WA, de Lange DW. The etiology and outcome of non-traumatic coma in critical care: A systematic review. BMC Anesthesiol 2015;15(1).

Download references

Acknowledgements

To every critical care medicine physician from Chile that participated answering this survey. The Curing Coma Campaign Collaborators and its contributing members are acknowledged on the title page.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Critical Care Department, Finis Terrae University, Pedro de Valdivia 1509 Providencia, Santiago, Chile

    Andrés Giglio, Andrés Reccius, Cesar Pedreros & Andrés Ferre

  2. Critical Care Center, Clinica Las Condes Hospital, Estoril 450, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile

    Andrés Giglio, Andrés Reccius, Cesar Pedreros, Monserrat Pino, Carolina Riquelme & Andrés Ferre

  3. Critical Care Unit, Clinica Santa María, Santiago, Chile

    Tomás Regueira

  4. Medical Informatics, Finis Terrae University, Santiago, Chile

    Cristóbal Carvajal

  5. Neurosurgery Department of Herminda Martin Hospital, Chillán, Chile

    Sergio Aguilera

  6. Universidad de Valparaiso, Valparaiso, Chile

    Sergio Aguilera

  7. Neuroscience Critical Care Division, Departments of Neurology, and Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    José Ignacio Suarez

Authors
  1. Andrés Giglio
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Andrés Reccius
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Tomás Regueira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Cristóbal Carvajal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Cesar Pedreros
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Monserrat Pino
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Carolina Riquelme
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Sergio Aguilera
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Andrés Ferre
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. José Ignacio Suarez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Consortia

The Curing Coma Campaign and its Collaborators

Contributions

All co-authors wrote the initial draft of the article. All co-authors edited the article and approved the final content.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrés Giglio.

Ethics declarations

Conflicts of Interest

None.

Ethical Approval/Informed Consent

This Study was approved by the Institutional Review Board from the Clinica de Las Condes Hospital. Every participant consented to participate before answering the online survey.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This article is related to the commentary article available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12028-024-01987-3.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Giglio, A., Reccius, A., Regueira, T. et al. Coma Prevalence in Critical Care Units in Chile: Results of a Cross-Sectional Survey on World Coma Day. Neurocrit Care (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12028-024-01986-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12028-024-01986-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation