Prognosis of Anxiety in Intensive Care Unit

Anxiety is commonly considered as an epiphenomenon of the cognitive and emotional response to a threat. Anxiety is a consequence of the reciprocal interaction between stress and the neuroendocrine, autonomic and immune systems. A systematic and circumstantial assessment of anxiety in critically ill patients has never been done. Our hypothesis is that high levels of anxiety at ICU admission are associated with death or the occurrence of one or more organ failure during the first 7 days, and that anxiety should be considered as a "warning sign" in critically ill patients.