Background Leaving against medical advice (LAMA) is a common health concern seen worldwide. It has variable incidence and reasons depending upon disease, geographical region and type of health care system. Materials and methods We approached anesthesiologists and intensivists for their opinion through ISA and ISCCM contact database using Monkey Survey of 22 questions covering geographical area, type of healthcare system, incidence, reasons, type of disease, expected outcome of LAMA patients etc. Results We received only 1154 responses. Only 584 answered all questions. Out of 1154, only 313 respondents were from government medical colleges or hospitals while remaining responses were from private and corporate sector. Most hospitals had >100 beds. ICUs were semi-closed and supervised by critical-care physicians. LAMA incidence was maximum from ICU (45%) followed by ward (32%) and emergency (25%). Most patients of LAMA had ICU stay for >1 week (60%). Eighty percent of the respondents opined that financial constraints are the most common reason of LAMA. Unsatisfactory care was rarely considered as a factor for LAMA. Approximately 40% patients had advanced malignancy or disease. Nearly 2/3rd strongly believed that insurance cover may reduce the LAMA rate. Conclusion Most patients get LAMA from the ICU after a stay of week. Financial constraints, terminal medical illness, malignancy and sepsis are major causes of LAMA. Remedial methods suggested to decrease the incidence include a good national health policy by the state; improved communication between the patient, caregivers and heathcare team; practice of palliative and end-of-life care support; and lastly, awareness among the people about advance directives. How to cite this article Paul G, Gautam PL et al . Patients Leaving Against Medical Advice-A National Survey. Indian J Crit Care Med 2019;23(3):143-148.

Context:Discharge against medical advice or leave against medical advice (DAMA or LAMA) is a global phenomenon. The magnitude of LAMA phenomenon has a wide geographical variation. LAMA reasons are an area of concern for all involved in health-care delivery system.Aims and Objectives:The study aimed to evaluate cases of LAMA retrospectively in a tertiary teaching care institute (1) to find the magnitude of LAMA cases (2) to evaluate demographic and patient characteristics of these cases.Subjects and Methods:We screened hospital record of a referral institute over 1 year after approval from IEC and ICMR, New Delhi. Patient demographics and disease characteristics were noted and statistically analyzed after compilation.Results:A total of 47,583 patients were admitted in the year 2015 through emergency and outpatient department. One thousand five hundred and fifty-six (3.3%) patients got DAMA. The mean age of patient excluding infants was 46.64 ± 20.55 years. There were 62.9% of males. Average hospital stay of these cases was 4.09 ± 4.39 days. Most of the patients (70%) belonged to medical specialties and had longer stay as compared to surgical specialties. Most of LAMA patients were suffering from infections, trauma, and malignancies. Most of the patients had LAMA from ward (62%) followed by Intensive Care Unit (ICU) (28.8%) and emergency (9.2%). In 592 (38%) of LAMA patients, the reason for leaving was not clear. The common cited reasons for LAMA were financial (27.6%) and poor prognosis (20.5%).Conclusions:About 3.3% of patients left hospital against medical advice in our retrospective analysis. Most of these cases did so from ward followed by ICU. Financial reasons and expected poor outcome played a significant role.

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Background:The patient-ventilator asynchrony is almost observed in all modes of ventilation, and this asynchrony affects lung mechanics adversely resulting in deleterious outcome. Innovations and advances in ventilator technology have been trying to overcome this problem by designing newer modes of ventilation. Pressure support ventilation (PSV) is a commonly used flow-cycled mode where a constant pressure is delivered by ventilator. Proportional assist ventilation (PAV) is a new dynamic inspiratory pressure assistance and is supposed to be better than PSV for synchrony and tolerance, but reports are still controversial. Moreover, most of these studies are conducted in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients with respiratory failure; the results of these studies may not be applicable to surgical patients. Thus, we proposed to do compare these two modes in surgical Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients as a randomized crossover study.Aims:Comparison of patient-ventilator asynchrony between PSV and PAV plus (PAV+) in surgical patients while weaning.Subjects and Methods:After approval by the Hospital Ethics Committee, we enrolled twenty patients from surgical ICU of tertiary care institute. The patients were ventilated with pressure support mode (PSV) and PAV+ for 12 h as a crossover from one mode to another after 6 h while weaning.Results:Average age and weight of patients were 41.80 ± 15.20 years (mean ± standard deviation [SD]) and 66.50 ± 12.47 (mean ± SD) kg, respectively. Comparing the asynchronies between the two modes, the mean number of total asynchronous recorded breaths in PSV was 7.05 ± 0.83 and 4.35 ± 5.62, respectively, during sleep and awake state, while the same were 6.75 ± 112.24 and 10.85 ± 11.33 in PAV+.Conclusion:Both PSV and PAV+ modes of ventilation performed similarly for patient-ventilator synchrony in surgical patients. In surgical patients with acute respiratory failure, dynamic inspiratory pressure assistance modalities are not superior to PSV with respect to cardiorespiratory function.