Background : Critically-ill trauma patients have a high mortality. Objective : To study the factors affecting the mortality of ICU trauma patients treated at Al-Ain Hospital, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Methods : All trauma patients who were admitted to the ICU were prospectively collected over three years (2003-2006). Univariate and multivariate analysis were used to compare patients who died and who did not. Gender, age, nationality, mechanism of injury, systolic blood pressure and GCS on arrival, the need for ventilation, presence of head or chest injuries, AIS for the chest and head injuries and the ISS were studied. Results : There were 202 patients (181 males). The most common mechanism of injury was road traffic collisions (72.3 %). The overall mortality was 13.9%. A direct logistic regression model has shown that factors that affected mortality were decreased GCS (p < 0.0001), mechanism of injury (p = 0.004) with burns having the highest mortality, increased age (p = 0.004), and increased ISS (p = 0.02). The best GCS that predicted mortality was 5.5 while the best ISS that predicted mortality was 13.5. Conclusion : Road traffic collision is the most common cause of serious trauma in UAE followed by falls. Decreased GCS was the most significant factor that predicted mortality in the ICU trauma patients.

Key words : Intensive Care Unit, injury, epidemiology, hospitalization, registry, mortality