Springer, Intensive Care Medicine, 7(43), p. 971-979, 2017
DOI: 10.1007/s00134-016-4633-8
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PURPOSE: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there is a need to define optimal levels of perioperative care. Our aim was to describe the relationship between the provision and use of critical care resources and postoperative mortality. METHODS: Planned analysis of data collected during an international 7-day cohort study of adults undergoing elective in-patient surgery. We used risk-adjusted mixed-effects logistic regression models to evaluate the association between admission to critical care immediately after surgery and in-hospital mortality. We evaluated hospital-level associations between mortality and critical care admission immediately after surgery, critical care admission to treat life-threatening complications, and hospital provision of critical care beds. We evaluated the effect of national income using interaction tests. RESULTS: 44,814 patients from 474 hospitals in 27 countries were available for analysis. Death was more frequent amongst patients admitted directly to critical care after surgery (critical care: 103/4317 patients [2%], standard ward: 99/39,566 patients [0.3%]; adjusted OR 3.01 [2.10-5.21]; p