• René Robert, Amélie Le Gouge, Nancy Kentish-Barnes, Alice Cottereau, Bruno Giraudeau, Mélanie Adda, Djillali Annane, Juliette Audibert, François Barbier, Patrick Bardou, Simon Bourcier, Jeremy Bourenne, Alexandre Boyer, François Brenas, Vincent Das, Arnaud Desachy, Jérôme Devaquet, Marc Feissel, Frédérique Ganster, Maïté Garrouste-Orgeas, Guillaume Grillet, Olivier Guisset, Rebecca Hamidfar-Roy, Anne-Claire Hyacinthe, Sebastien Jochmans, Mercé Jourdain, Alexandre Lautrette, Nicolas Lerolle, Olivier Lesieur, Fabien Lion, Philippe Mateu, Bruno Megarbane, Sybille Merceron, Emmanuelle Mercier, Jonathan Messika, Paul Morin-Longuet, and Bénédicte Philippon-Jouve.
• Inserm CIC, 1402, axe Alive, Poitiers, France.
• Intensive Care Med. 2017 Dec 1; 43 (12): 1793-1807.

PurposeThe relative merits of immediate extubation versus terminal weaning for mechanical ventilation withdrawal are controversial, particularly regarding the experience of patients and relatives.MethodsThis prospective observational multicentre study (ARREVE) was done in 43 French ICUs to compare terminal weaning and immediate extubation, as chosen by the ICU team. Terminal weaning was a gradual decrease in the amount of ventilatory assistance and immediate extubation was extubation without any previous decrease in ventilatory assistance. The primary outcome was posttraumatic stress symptoms (Impact of Event Scale Revised, IES-R) in relatives 3 months after the death. Secondary outcomes were complicated grief, anxiety, and depression symptoms in relatives; comfort of patients during the dying process; and job strain in staff.ResultsWe enrolled 212 (85.5%) relatives of 248 patients with terminal weaning and 190 relatives (90.5%) of 210 patients with immediate extubation. Immediate extubation was associated with airway obstruction and a higher mean Behavioural Pain Scale score compared to terminal weaning. In relatives, IES-R scores after 3 months were not significantly different between groups (31.9 ± 18.1 versus 30.5 ± 16.2, respectively; adjusted difference, -1.9; 95% confidence interval, -5.9 to 2.1; p = 0.36); neither were there any differences in complicated grief, anxiety, or depression scores. Assistant nurses had lower job strain scores in the immediate extubation group.ConclusionsCompared to terminal weaning, immediate extubation was not associated with differences in psychological welfare of relatives when each method constituted standard practice in the ICU where it was applied. Patients had more airway obstruction and gasps with immediate extubation.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01818895.

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