ABSTRACT

Following the civil war in the Middle East in 2011, refugees have faced myriad psychological and physical health problems as they try to live in foreign places and often in inappropriate conditions with insufficient financial resources. Children are affected the most by these conditions. This study is aimed at presenting the characteristics of refugee patients in the pediatric intensive care unit at our hospital.

Medical reports of patients who were admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2015 were retrospectively investigated. Data were screened according to gender, age, reason and length of hospitalization, nationality, place of residence, final condition of patients as well as causes of death.

A total of 1.028 patients who were admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit within the two-year period were included in the study. Of these patients, 148 (14.3%) were refugees. The average rate of pediatric intensive care unit admissions was 0.23% while it was 1.27% among refugees. The most frequent causes of hospitalization were poisoning, respiratory system diseases and nervous system diseases. The most frequent causes of hospitalization among refugees were respiratory system diseases, endocrinology and metabolic diseases, infection diseases, and nervous system diseases respectively. General mortality rate in our study was 7.5% whereas the mortality rate for refugees was 10.1%.

Diseases causing hospitalization in the pediatric intensive care unit may differ depending on the patient profile. Higher hospitalization rates in the intensive care unit as well as higher mortality rates reveal that registered as well as unregistered refugee children face severe health problems.

Keywords: Pediatric, refugees, intensive care units