Non-diabetic Hyperglycemia and Some of Its Correlates in ICU Hospitalized Patients Receiving Enteral Nutrition

Hyperglycemia is a common occurrence in critically ill patients, and its prevalence
in patients receiving nutritional support is much higher than in other patients. The non-diabetic
form is associated with more undesirable outcomes. This study was performed to determine the
prevalence of non-diabetic hyperglycemia and its correlates in patients receiving enteral nutrition.
Material and methods: This cross-sectional study was performed between March and December
2015. Seven hundred forty eight (748) patients were reviewed to see if they met the inclusion
criteria. After random sequence numbering, 414 patients who were eligible for further assessment
and data gathering were selected. Hyperglycemia was defined as the blood glucose levels higher
than either 126 mg/dL, in the fasting state, or 180 mg/dL, in a random state. Blood glucose was
measured by an ACCU-CHECK glucometer (Roche diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany) threetimes, after ICU admission, in both fasting and random state. A pre-prepared form was used to
extract data from hospital records. Data analysis was performed by SPSS 21 software.
Results: In this group of hospitalized patients, the prevalence of non-diabetic hyperglycemia
was 14/49 (60/414). In the hyperglycemic subgroup, mean FBS was 228.00±36.42, mean random
BS was 183.19±43.94 and mean blood sugar on the first day of hospitalization was 203.60 ± 60.79.
The mean age of patients was 56.64±19.79 years and the mean duration of hospitalization was
19.24±15.33 days. There was no significant relationship between enteral nutrition feeding volume
and hyperglycemia. Majorly, patients aged above 60 years were hyperglycemic. The prevalence
was higher in men than in women. Most patients were internal cases, but with the highest
prevalence of hyperglycemia in surgical patients.
Conclusion: Since among different studied variables just diagnosed disease and the level
of provided calorie showed significant differences between subgroup categories, so it can be
suggested that designing on-time appropriate management programs based them can be effective
on the administration of non-diabetic hyperglycemia and its undesirable consequences in such
patients