Ranking Nursing Diagnoses by Predictive Relevance for Intensive Care Unit Transfer Risk in Adult and Pediatric Patients: A Machine Learning Approach with Random Forest

Background/Objectives: In hospital settings, the wide variability of acute and complex chronic conditions—among both adult and pediatric patients—requires advanced approaches to detect early signs of clinical deterioration and the risk of transfer to the intensive care unit (ICU). Nursing diagnoses (NDs), standardized representations of patient responses to actual or potential health problems, reflect nursing complexity. However, most studies have focused on the total number of NDs rather than the individual role each diagnosis may play in relation to outcomes such as ICU transfer. This study aimed to identify and rank the specific NDs most strongly associated with ICU transfers in hospitalized adult and pediatric patients. Methods: A retrospective, monocentric observational study was conducted using electronic health records from an Italian tertiary hospital. The dataset included 42,735 patients (40,649 adults and 2086 pediatric), and sociodemographic, clinical, and nursing data were collected. A random forest model was applied to assess the predictive relevance (i.e., variable importance) of individual NDs in relation to ICU transfers. Results: Among adult patients, the NDs most strongly associated with ICU transfer were Physical mobility impairment, Injury risk, Skin integrity impairment risk, Acute pain, and Fall risk. In the pediatric population, Acute pain, Injury risk, Sleep pattern disturbance, Skin integrity impairment risk, and Airway clearance impairment emerged as the NDs most frequently linked to ICU transfer. The models showed good performance and generalizability, with stable out-of-bag and validation errors across iterations. Conclusions: A prioritized ranking of NDs appears to be associated with ICU transfers, suggesting their potential utility as early warning indicators of clinical deterioration. Patients presenting with high-risk diagnostic profiles should be prioritized for enhanced clinical surveillance and proactive intervention, as they may represent vulnerable populations.