Patients With Long-stay at ICU: Factors and Evaluation - Feasibility Study

Every year, many critically ill patients are admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU). Most stay only a few days, but a smaller group stays much longer. In Sweden, patients treated in the ICU for more than 10 days account for about 35 percent of all ICU days. Little is known about why some patients need prolonged intensive care, or how their lives are affected afterwards. LIFE-ICU is a planned national observational cohort study of adult patients in general intensive care. This record covers the feasibility study that precedes the main study, including its pilot part. The feasibility study does not change the care patients receive. About 200 adult patients who have been treated in a general ICU for more than four days will be included consecutively at the participating ICUs. For each patient, a designated next of kin, usually the family member or friend most involved during the ICU stay, is invited to take part. Information is collected from the medical record about health before admission and about the ICU stay, for example organ support, delirium, nutrition and mobilisation. At ICU discharge, patients answer four questions about distressing memories from the ICU. Six months after final discharge from intensive care, patients are contacted by letter and then by telephone. They answer questions about health status, quality of life, anxiety and depression, post-traumatic stress, fatigue, life satisfaction, frailty, overall function and occupational status. Designated next of kin answer questions about their own life satisfaction, post-traumatic stress and caregiver burden, provided that the patient is alive at the time of follow-up. A selection of patients and next of kin are also invited to an interview about their experiences of intensive care and of recovery. Staff who collect the data answer an anonymous questionnaire about how the data collection worked. The study compares patients whose total ICU stay is more than 10 days with patients whose stay is more th