Table 1.

Demographic and clinical characteristics of 242 intensive care unit (ICU) patients (mean ± standard deviation)*

	No. of patients
Patient characteristics	total	study sample	died or lost to follow-up	P†
N	242	116	126
Male sex (n, %)	170 (70)	88 (76)	82 (65)
Age (yrs)	58.2 ± 21	51.2 ± 21	65.8 ± 17.0	<0.001
ICU stay (days)*	11.7 ± 11.9	13.1 ± 14.5	18.6 ± 27.4	NS
APACHE II	17.5 ± 8.0	14.5 ± 6.5	21.5 ± 6.7	<0.001
SAPS II	49.9 ± 18.4	41.6 ± 12.4	59.8 ± 16.0	<0.001

*Abbreviations: ICU – intensive care unit; APACHE – Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (10); SAPS – Simplified Acute Physiology Score (9).

†Mann-Whitney test – comparisons were made between mean values of the study population and those who died or lost to follow-up.