• Sophie Geoghegan, Kate Oulton, Catherine Bull, Joe Brierley, Mark Peters, and Jo Wray.
• 1Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom. 2Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
• Pediatr Crit Care Me. 2016 Jun 1; 17 (6): e266-71.

ObjectiveCompared to shorter-stay patients, caring for long-stay patients in the ICU entails a disproportionate burden for staff. Our objective was to gain a deeper understanding of the impact on staff of caring for children who have a prolonged stay on the PICU.DesignQualitative study based on semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using the Framework approach.SettingChildren's tertiary hospital.ParticipantsSeventeen members of staff (7 psychosocial staff, 7 nurses, 3 consultants) working in the PICU, neonatal ICU, or cardiac ICU (PICU will be used to encompass neonatal ICU, cardiac ICU, and PICU for the remainder of this article).InterventionsSemi-structured, tape-recorded interviews.Measurements And Main ResultsStaff reported both positive and challenging aspects of caring for long-stay patients in the PICU. Five key areas relating to the challenges of caring for long-stay patients were identified: staff expectations about their work, characteristics of the patient group, the impact on staff, the impact on the wider unit, and the availability of support. Staff views were often compounded by individual cases they had been involved with or had heard about which fell at either end of the spectrum of "good" and "bad".ConclusionsWhilst there are reported benefits associated with caring for long-stay patients, there are a number of challenges reported that may have implications for staff and the wider unit. When caring for a particular sub-group of long-stay patients, staff may be more likely to experience negative impacts. A key priority for the PICU is to ensure that support mechanisms are timely, accessible, and allow staff to explore their own reactions to their work.

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