Documentation of acute kidney injury at discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit and role of nephrology consultation

Objective To investigate whether NICU discharge summaries documented neonatal AKI and estimate if nephrology consultation mediated this association. Study design Secondary analysis of AWAKEN multicenter retrospective cohort. Exposures: AKI severity and diagnostic criteria. Outcome: AKI documentation on NICU discharge summaries using multivariable logistic regression to estimate associations and test for causal mediation. Results Among 605 neonates with AKI, 13% had documented AKI. Those with documented AKI were more likely to have severe AKI (70.5% vs. 51%, p < 0.001) and SCr-only AKI (76.9% vs. 50.1%, p = 0.04). Nephrology consultation mediated 78.0% (95% CL 46.5–109.4%) of the total effect of AKI severity and 82.8% (95% CL 70.3–95.3%) of the total effect of AKI diagnostic criteria on documentation. Conclusion We report a low prevalence of AKI documentation at NICU discharge. AKI severity and SCr-only AKI increased odds of AKI documentation. Nephrology consultation mediated the associations of AKI severity and diagnostic criteria with documentation.