Introduction: Prognosis is the important information for health care providers, patients and their relatives in the hospital. In this regard, to predict mortality and morbidity, various methods e.g. physiological status and severity of illness scoring systems and also the relationship between serum magnesium levels and mortality rate have been developed and evaluated. But the relationship between these factors and the outcome is not well known. The aim of this study is “to compare the prognosis in patients with normal and low magnesium level in intensive care unit admission in relation with acute physiology and chronic health evaluation system (APACHE) II, III and Sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) scores".

Materials & methods: This prospective observational cohort study was done in a general adult intensive care unit, over 18 months ‘periods. The eligibility patients (N=180) included into two groups normal magnesium and hypomagnesaemia by census sampling method and were followed until discharge or death. Data collection tools were a questionnaire and a check list. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 15.

Findings: The results showed more than half of the patients were male. The SOFA, APACHE III score in patients with hypomagnesaemia was higher than normomagnesaemia patients. But APACHE II scores were not significantly different among the two groups. In addition, mortality incidence in patients with hypomagnesemia was higher (53.3%) compared to patients with normomagnesaemia (23.3%)(0001/0>р) ..

Discussion & conclusions: The results of this study are further emphasis on the role of admission's hypomagnesemia in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) on mortality and morbidity prognosis. It seems that due to limitations in hospital facilities in the country, careful monitoring of serum magnesium and its timely replacement for patients prioritization, resource allocation and risk reduction are appropriate.