Perceptions and practices regarding light sedation in mechanically ventilated patients: a survey on the attitudes of Brazilian critical care physicians.

Objective: To characterize the knowledge and perceived attitudes toward pharmacologic interventions for light sedation in mechanically ventilated patients and to understand the current gaps comparing current practice with the recommendations of the Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Prevention and Management of Pain, Agitation/Sedation, Delirium, Immobility, and Sleep Disruption in Adult Patients in the Intensive Care Unit.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional cohort study based on the application of an electronic questionnaire focused on sedation practices.

Results: A total of 303 critical care physicians provided responses to the survey.

Quality in intensive care units: proposal of an assessment instrument.

Background: There is an increasing need for standardized instruments for quality assessment that are able to reflect the actual conditions of the intensive care practices, especially in low and middle-income countries. The aim of this article is to describe the preparation of an instrument for quality assessment of adult intensive care services adapted to the actual conditions of intensive care in a middle-income country and comprising indicators validated in the literature.

Methods: The study consisted of five steps: (1) a literature survey; (2) a discussion with specialists by consensus method; (3) a pilot field test; (4) a description of indicators; and (5) an elaboration of the final version of the instrument.

Energy Expenditure in Critically Ill Elderly Patients: Indirect Calorimetry vs Predictive Equations.

Background: Predictive equations (PEs) are used for estimating resting energy expenditure (REE) when the measurements obtained from indirect calorimetry (IC) are not available. This study evaluated the degree of agreement and the accuracy between the REE measured by IC (REE-IC) and REE estimated by PE (REE-PE) in mechanically ventilated elderly patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).

Methods: REE-IC of 97 critically ill elderly patients was compared with REE-PE by 6 PEs: Harris and Benedict (HB) multiplied by the correction factor of 1.

Delirium in intensive care unit patients under noninvasive ventilation: a multinational survey.

Objective: To conduct a multinational survey of intensive care unit professionals to determine the practices on delirium assessment and management, in addition to their perceptions and attitudes toward the evaluation and impact of delirium in patients requiring noninvasive ventilation.

Methods: An electronic questionnaire was created to evaluate the profiles of the respondents and their related intensive care units, the systematic delirium assessment and management and the respondents' perceptions and attitudes regarding delirium in patients requiring noninvasive ventilation. The questionnaire was distributed to the cooperative network for research of the Associação de Medicina Intensiva Brasileira (AMIB-Net) mailing list and to researchers in different centers in Latin America and Europe.

Early sedation and clinical outcomes of mechanically ventilated patients: a prospective multicenter cohort study.

Introduction: Sedation overuse is frequent and possibly associated with poor outcomes in the intensive care unit (ICU) patients. However, the association of early oversedation with clinical outcomes has not been thoroughly evaluated. The aim of this study was to assess the association of early sedation strategies with outcomes of critically ill adult patients under mechanical ventilation (MV).