Are We Monitoring Urine Output for the Surgical Patients in Ward Settings While Indicated or Planned?

Introduction: Early recognition of acute kidney injury (AKI), better understanding of its pathogenesis, and development of preventing strategies appear to be potential areas of improvement of patient’s prognosis. The decrease of glomerular filtration rate and urine output in response to a decrease of renal blood flow is classically referred as pre-renal azotaemia, which can evolve into structural damage if renal hypoperfusion persists. In this line, urine output often is used as a marker of AKI but also to guide fluid resuscitation in critically ill patients. Methods: Our audit objective is to find out the number of patients undergoing major surgery or advised by the surgeon, do they have urine output monitoring in place. Prospective data were collected over 2 weeks by patients’ record review and bedside examination. Results: A total of 77 patients were included and among them 53 patients had urine output accurately monitored and 24 patients were not monitored for urine output. Conclusion: As UO monitoring can be early indicator of illness, deterioration or impending adverse event like AKI and not doing so would lead to major complications of electrolyte imbalance putting patient safety at risk. From our study it is evident that all patients did not have their urine output monitored.