Background: Based on survey data from both Canada and abroad, most people would prefer to be cared for and to die in their own homes. Although 70% of elderly patients state a preference for comfort care over high technology life prolonging treatment in an inpatient setting, 54% are still admitted to intensive care units (ICUs). Understanding their wishes regarding end-of-life care, and being able to engage in evidence informed end-of-life discussions has never been so important, in order to empower patients, and to optimize scarce resource management. For the purpose of this thesis, “very old” patients will be defined as those eighty years of age and older. All three manuscripts will be based on data from the Realistic 80 study, a prospective cohort trial of 1671 critically ill very old patients admitted to 22 Canadian ICUs. Objectives: Manuscript 1: To describe the hospital outcomes of the entire cohort of Realistic 80 patients, including their ICU mortality and length of stay, their hospital mortality and length of stay, and their ultimate dispositions. Manuscript 2: To derive a clinical prediction rule for hospital mortality in the medical patient cohort. Manuscript 3: To derive a clinical prediction rule for hospital mortality in the emergency surgical patient cohort. Data Source: A prospective, multicenter cohort study of very elderly medical and surgical patients admitted to 22 Canadian academic and non-academic ICUs. Methods: Clinical decision rule methodology was used to analyze the data set and to create two separate clinical prediction tools, one for critically ill elderly medical patients, and one for critically ill surgical emergency patients. A third manuscript describing general clinical outcomes was also produced. Results of Manuscript 1: A total of 1671 patients were included in this section of the “Realities, Expectations and Attitudes to Life Support Technologies in Intensive Care for Octogenarians: The Realistic 80 Study (a prospective cohort of nearly 2000 critically ill Canadian patients over eighty years old enrolled from 22 ICUs across Canada) that will provide the data for this thesis. The Realistic 80 cohort had a mean age of 84.5, a baseline Apache II score of 22.4, a baseline SOFA score of 5.3, an overall ICU mortality of 21.8%, and an overall hospital mortality of 35%. The cohort had a median ICU length of stay of 3.7 days, and an overall median hospital length of stay of 16.6 days. Only 46.4% of the survivors were able to return home to live. Results of Manuscript 2: Age, renal function, level of consciousness, and serum pH were the important predictors of hospital mortality in critically ill elderly medical patients. Our clinical prediction tool is very good, particularly at the all-important extremes of prognosis, and ready for external validation. Results of Manuscript 3: Renal function and serum pH were the important predictors of hospital mortality in critically ill elderly surgical patients. Our model’s performance is very good, and will serve to inform clinical practice once validated. Conclusions: Very old medical patients have longer ICU stays and higher mortality than their surgical counterparts. Premorbid health status and severity of illness are associated with mortality. Our medical patient clinical prediction tool is very good and ready for external validation. Our surgical emergency clinical prediction tool shows promise, but will require the incorporation of more patients and a repeat derivation phase prior to external validation or clinical implementation.

Objective: This study aims to derive a clinically-applicable decision rule to predict the risk of symptomatic vasospasm, a neurological deficit primarily due to abnormal narrowing of cerebral arteries supplying an attributable territory, in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Methods: SAH patients presenting from 2002 to 2011 were analyzed using logistic regression and recursive partitioning to identify clinical, radiological, and laboratory features that predict the occurrence of symptomatic vasospasm. Results: The incidence of symptomatic vasospasm was 21.0%. On multivariate logistic regression analysis, significant predictors of symptomatic vasospasm included age 40-59 years, high Modified Fisher Grade (Grades 3 and 4), and anterior circulation aneurysms. Conclusion: Development of symptomatic vasospasm can be reliably predicted using a clinical decision rule created by logistic regression. It exhibits increased accuracy over the Modified Fisher Grade alone and may serve as a useful clinical tool to individualize vasospasm risk once prospectively validated in other neurosurgical centres.

Many elderly patients visiting the emergency department for minor injuries are not assessed for functional status and experience functional decline 6 months post injury. Identifying such high-risk patients can allow for interventions to prevent or minimize adverse health outcomes including loss of independence. For the purpose of a planned clinical decision rule to identify elderly patients at high risk of functional decline a survey of physicians was conducted. A random sample of 534 Canadian geriatricians, emergency and family physicians was selected with half randomly selected to receive an incentive. A response rate of 57.0% was obtained with 90% of physicians considering a drop in function of at least 2 points on the 28-point OARS ADL scale as clinically significant. A sensitivity of 90% would meet or exceed 90% of physicians' requirements for a clinical decision rule to identify injured seniors at high risk of functional decline 6 months post injury.

Many elderly patients visiting the emergency department for minor injuries are not assessed for functional status and experience functional decline 6 months post injury. Identifying such high-risk patients can allow for interventions to prevent or minimize adverse health outcomes including loss of independence. For the purpose of a planned clinical decision rule to identify elderly patients at high risk of functional decline a survey of physicians was conducted. A random sample of 534 Canadian geriatricians, emergency and family physicians was selected with half randomly selected to receive an incentive. A response rate of 57.0% was obtained with 90% of physicians considering a drop in function of at least 2 points on the 28-point OARS ADL scale as clinically significant. A sensitivity of 90% would meet or exceed 90% of physicians' requirements for a clinical decision rule to identify injured seniors at high risk of functional decline 6 months post injury.

Les algies pelviennes aigues constituent le premier motif de consultation aux urgences gynécologiques. Les étiologies possibles de ces algies pelviennes aigues sont nombreuses et incluent à la fois des affections gynécologiques et non gynécologiques. Certaines de ces affections peuvent, en l’absence de diagnostic précoce et d’un traitement adapté, avoir des conséquences très graves. Dans ce travail, nous avons développé un autoquestionnaire standardisé de manière qualitative dédié aux urgences gynécologiques par des entretiens structurés. Nous avons ensuite construit des modèles de prédiction clinique dédiés (i) au diagnostic de rupture tubaire chez les patientes porteuses de grossesses extra-utérines et (ii) au diagnostic de torsion d’annexe à partir de cet autoquestionnaire. Après avoir défini le concept d’urgence potentiellement à risque en gynécologie, nous avons proposé (iii) un modèle de prédiction clinique de celles-ci basé sur notre autoquestionnaire standardisé. A l’issue du développement de ces modèles, nous avons sélectionné certains items de l’autoquestionnaire standardisé afin d’en proposer une version simplifiée. L’utilisation de nos modèles pour le tri et le diagnostic des patientes aux urgences gynécologiques pourrait permettre d’optimiser la prise en charge des patientes. Dans les groupes à haut risque de pathologie, les patientes pourraient bénéficier d’une prise en charge plus rapide avec une éventuelle diminution de la morbidité secondaire à la pathologie. Pour les patientes classées à bas risque, une désescalade des examens complémentaires et des chirurgies inutiles pourrait aussi permettre une diminution de la morbidité d’origine iatrogène. / Acute pelvic pain is the main reason for emergency gynecologic consultation. The possible etiologies of acute pelvic pain are numerous and include both gynecological and non gynecological diseases. Some of these conditions may, in the absence of early diagnosis and appropriate treatment, have very serious consequences. In this work, we developed qualitatively a standardized self-assessed questionnaire dedicated to gynecological emergencies by structured interviews. We then developed clinical prediction rules for (i) the diagnosis of tubal rupture in patients who have ectopic pregnancies and (ii) the diagnosis of adnexal torsion. After a definition of the concept of potentially at risk emergencies in gynecology, we have proposed (iii) a clinical prediction rule based on our questionnaire. Following the development of these models, we selected items from the self-assessed questionnaire in order to propose a simplified version. Using our models for triaging and diagnosis of patients with gynecologic emergencies may optimize the management of patients. In groups at high risk of disease, patients may benefit from faster medical management with a possible decrease in morbidity. For patients classified as low risk, decrease of complementary tests and unnecessary surgery could also allow a reduction of iatrogenic morbidity.