Infants Who Have Undergone Cardiac Surgery: What Can We Learn About Lengths of Stay in the Hospital and Presence of Complications?

The purpose of this study was to describe a population of infants undergoing cardiac surgery at a regional tertiary medical center and the relationship between age, weight, number of other diagnoses, and length of stay in the hospital and presence of complications. Nearly two thirds of the infants in the sample (n = 551; age, birth to 365 days) were younger than 28 days with a modal weight of 3.2 kg. There were 56 defects in the infants and 152 operative procedures studied. Fifty percent of the infants had one primary defect and were discharged in 2 to 10 days; 63.7% had no complications after surgery and were discharged in 4 to 15 days after surgery. Operative weight significantly predicted length of stay (p = .046; R2 = .046). Operative age (p = .0011) and number of other diagnoses other than a child's primary defect (p = .0099) significantly predicted presence of fatal and nonfatal complications. As the number of other diagnoses increased by one, the odds of complications increased by 28%. As operative age increased by 1 day, the odds of complications decreased by 0.63%. The findings from this study can be used as evidence to support care that nurses give to neonates and infants undergoing cardiac surgery. These findings provide support for integration of this information into the informed consent process.