| Summary: | Aim: To determine whether unbooked admissions were predictable, or whether there were any preventable anaesthetic factors responsible for intensive care unit (ICU) admission.
Materials and Methods: The admissions to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu for the period June, 1998 to end of August 1999 were reviewed. Data were collected from medical records, especially anaesthetic records. The anaesthetic chart records the source of the admission, whether post-operative admissions are booked or unbooked, patient age, mortality, details of therapies (including medications, monitoring lines, management of fluids) airway problems, cardiac disease, respiratory failure renal impairment and infection.
Result: Three thousand operations were performed during the study period. There were 150 admissions to the ICU from the operating theatre, with 9(6%) unbooked. Of the unbooked admissions, 6(67%) were considered predictable and 4 (44%) had preventable features.
Conclusion: There were predictable and unpredictable admissions with or without preventable features.
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