Patient and Caregiver-Derived Health Service Improvements for Better Critical Care Recovery.

Objectives: To engage critical care end-users (survivors and caregivers) to describe their emotions and experiences across their recovery trajectory, and elicit their ideas and solutions for health service improvements to improve the ICU recovery experience.

Design: End-user engagement as part of a qualitative design using the Framework Analysis method.

Setting: The Society of Critical Care Medicine's THRIVE international collaborative sites (follow-up clinics and peer support groups).

Modification of social determinants of health by critical illness and consequences of that modification for recovery: an international qualitative study.

Objectives: Social determinants of health (SDoH) contribute to health outcomes. We identified SDoH that were modified by critical illness, and the effect of such modifications on recovery from critical illness.

Design: In-depth semistructured interviews following hospital discharge.

Characteristics of Post-ICU and Post-COVID Recovery Clinics in 29 U.S. Health Systems.

Unlabelled: The multifaceted long-term impairments resulting from critical illness and COVID-19 require interdisciplinary management approaches in the recovery phase of illness. Operational insights into the structure and process of recovery clinics (RCs) from heterogeneous health systems are needed. This study describes the structure and process characteristics of existing and newly implemented ICU-RCs and COVID-RCs in a subset of large health systems in the United States.

Transitions of Care After Critical Illness-Challenges to Recovery and Adaptive Problem Solving.

Objectives: Investigate the challenges experienced by survivors of critical illness and their caregivers across the transitions of care from intensive care to community, and the potential problem-solving strategies used to navigate these challenges.

Design: Qualitative design-data generation via interviews and data analysis via the framework analysis method.

Setting: Patients and caregivers from three continents, identified through the Society of Critical Care Medicine's THRIVE international collaborative sites (follow-up clinics and peer support groups).

Benefits of Peer Support for Intensive Care Unit Survivors: Sharing Experiences, Care Debriefing, and Altruism.

Background: After critical illness, patients are often left with impairments in physical, social, emotional, and cognitive functioning. Peer support interventions have been implemented internationally to ameliorate these issues.

Objective: To explore what patients believed to be the key mechanisms of effectiveness of peer support programs implemented during critical care recovery.

Key Components of ICU Recovery Programs: What Did Patients Report Provided Benefit?

Unlabelled: To understand from the perspective of patients who did, and did not attend ICU recovery programs, what were the most important components of successful programs and how should they be organized.

Design: International, qualitative study.

Setting: Fourteen hospitals in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.

Enablers and Barriers to Implementing ICU Follow-Up Clinics and Peer Support Groups Following Critical Illness: The Thrive Collaboratives.

Objectives: Data are lacking regarding implementation of novel strategies such as follow-up clinics and peer support groups, to reduce the burden of postintensive care syndrome. We sought to discover enablers that helped hospital-based clinicians establish post-ICU clinics and peer support programs, and identify barriers that challenged them.

Design: Qualitative inquiry.

Key mechanisms by which post-ICU activities can improve in-ICU care: results of the international THRIVE collaboratives.

Objective: To identify the key mechanisms that clinicians perceive improve care in the intensive care unit (ICU), as a result of their involvement in post-ICU programs.

Methods: Qualitative inquiry via focus groups and interviews with members of the Society of Critical Care Medicine's THRIVE collaborative sites (follow-up clinics and peer support). Framework analysis was used to synthesize and interpret the data.

Innovative Approach to Reconstruct Bedside Handoff: Using Simple Rules of Complexity Science to Promote Partnership With Patients.

When nurses integrate patient expertise, nurse-to-nurse handoff becomes patient-centered (nurse and patient), and the weak link between quality and safety is mitigated. The existing paradigm for handoff is an ineffective measure to minimize errors. This article describes a reimagined bedside handoff-transitioning handoff from its prescriptive nurse-centered interaction to a patient-centered partnership using the principles of complex adaptive systems, simple rules, and partnerships that address the uniqueness of each patient and nurse interaction.

Characteristics, Complications, and Treatment of Acute Pericarditis.

Acute pericarditis occurs most frequently after a viral attack. Other causes are autoimmune conditions, infection, chest trauma, cardiac surgery, or cardiac procedure. The presenting symptom is retrosternal chest pain.

Patients' descriptions of dysphoria associated with cardiac tamponade.

Background: Cardiac tamponade is difficult to diagnose. Patients often experience sustained distress. Mood changes in the early stages of cardiac tamponade were previously described.

The impact of obesity on critical care resource use and outcomes.

Obese patients in the ICU present unique challenges to the health care team and specific challenges to nurses. This article reviews the science and art of resource use for obese patients in the ICU. Staff nurses and advanced practice nurses can make important contributions in evaluating optimal resource use and improving outcomes in this population of vulnerable patients.

Effect of a Family-Maintained Progress Journal on anxiety of families of critically ill patients.

The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of a Family-Maintained Progress Journal on the anxiety of the family member of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Ninety-one family members were assigned to either the group receiving the usual information or the group that also received a diary. Anxiety was significantly lower after 3 days although the reduction was not different by group.