• Lucy L Porter, Koen S Simons, Stijn Corsten, Brigitte Westerhof, RettigThijs C DTCDDepartment of Anesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine, Amphia Hospital, Breda, The Netherlands., Esther Ewalds, Inge Janssen, Crétien Jacobs, Susanne van Santen, SlooterArjen J CAJCDepartments of Psychiatry and Intensive Care Medicine, and UMC Utrecht Brain Center, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.Department of Neurology, UZ Brussel and Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Bru, van der WoudeMargaretha C EMCEZuyderland Medical Center, Department of Intensive Care, Heerlen, The Netherlands.Department of Intensive Care, Amsterdam University Medical Center, Location AC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands., Johannes G van der Hoeven, Marieke Zegers, and Mark van den Boogaard.
• Department of Intensive Care, Radboud University Medical Center, Geert Grooteplein Zuid 10, 6525 GA, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
• Crit Care. 2024 Jul 25; 28 (1): 255255.

BackgroundWith survival rates of critical illness increasing, quality of life measures are becoming an important outcome of ICU treatment. Therefore, to study the impact of critical illness on quality of life, we explored quality of life before and 1 year after ICU admission in different subgroups of ICU survivors.MethodsData from an ongoing prospective multicenter cohort study, the MONITOR-IC, were used. Patients admitted to the ICU in one of eleven participating hospitals between July 2016 and June 2021 were included. Outcome was defined as change in quality of life, measured using the EuroQol five-dimensional (EQ-5D-5L) questionnaire, and calculated by subtracting the EQ-5D-5L score 1 day before hospital admission from the EQ-5D-5L score 1 year post-ICU. Based on the minimal clinically important difference, a change in quality of life was defined as a change in EQ-5D-5L score of ≥ 0.08. Subgroups of patients were based on admission diagnosis.ResultsA total of 3913 (50.6%) included patients completed both baseline and follow-up questionnaires. 1 year post-ICU, patients admitted after a cerebrovascular accident, intracerebral hemorrhage, or (neuro)trauma, on average experienced a significant decrease in quality of life. Conversely, 11 other subgroups of ICU survivors reported improvements in quality of life. The largest average increase in quality of life was seen in patients admitted due to respiratory disease (mean 0.17, SD 0.38), whereas the largest average decrease was observed in trauma patients (mean -0.13, SD 0.28). However, in each of the studied 22 subgroups there were survivors who reported a significant increase in QoL and survivors who reported a significant decrease in QoL.ConclusionsThis large prospective multicenter cohort study demonstrated the diversity in long-term quality of life between, and even within, subgroups of ICU survivors. These findings emphasize the need for personalized information and post-ICU care.Trial RegistrationThe MONITOR-IC study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03246334 on August 2nd 2017.© 2024. The Author(s).

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