• Debbie G A Janssen, Joep Jonker, Diederik van Dijk, Eibert R Heerdink, Egberts Toine C G TCG Division Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Pharmacology, Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS), Faculty of Science, Utrecht Universit, and Slooter Arjen J C AJC Department of Intensive Care Medicine and UMC Utrecht Brain Center, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, PO Box 85500, 3508 GA Utr.
• Expert Centre of Military Pharmacy, Primary Healthcare Institute, Ministry of Defense, PO Box 90004, 3509 AA Utrecht, the Netherlands. Electronic address: DGA.Knotnerus.Janssen@mindef.nl.
• J Crit Care. 2020 Oct 1; 59: 112-117.

PurposeTo describe the extent to which patients with mental health problems after admission to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) initiate and use psychotropic medication.MethodsAll adult patients who stayed in the ICU of the University Medical Center Utrecht for 48 h or more between 2013 and 2017, alive after 1 year and not admitted to the ICU with brain injury, were eligible. Questionnaires were used to identify mental health problems, depression, anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psychotropic medication use.ResultsOf the 1328 former ICU patients, 24.3% (n = 323) had developed any of the mental health problems. Of this group, 29.7% (n = 96) used psychotropic medication one year after discharge versus the 10.6% (n = 107) of patients without these problems (OR 3.17, 95% CI 2.29-4.38). They were further 4.33 (95% CI 2.62-7.16) times more likely to initiate psychotropic medication (18.7% vs 4.8%) after ICU admission. Similar patterns were observed for individual groups of psychotropics: antidepressants, antipsychotics and benzodiazepines.DiscussionFormer ICU patients with mental health problems were almost four times more likely to use psychotropic medication than former ICU patients without these problems. Future research should investigate whether mental health problems are properly diagnosed and treated in former ICU patients.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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