• Crit Care · Feb 2019

    Impact of post-traumatic stress symptoms on the health-related quality of life in a cohort study with chronically critically ill patients and their partners: age matters.

    • Gloria-Beatrice Wintermann, Katja Petrowski, Kerstin Weidner, Bernhard Strauß, and Jenny Rosendahl.
    • Department of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine, Medizinische Fakultät Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307, Dresden, Germany. gloria.wintermann@uniklinikum-dresden.de.
    • Crit Care. 2019 Feb 8; 23 (1): 39.

    BackgroundSurvivors of an acute critical illness with continuing organ dysfunction and uncontrolled inflammatory responses are prone to become chronically critically ill. As mental sequelae, a post-traumatic stress disorder and an associated decrease in the health-related quality of life (QoL) may occur, not only in the patients but also in their partners. Currently, research on long-term mental distress in chronically critically ill patient-partner dyads, using appropriate dyadic analysis strategies (patients and partners being measured and linked on the same variables) and controlling for contextual factors, is lacking.MethodsThe present study investigates the interdependence of post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and the health-related QoL in n = 70 dyads of chronically critically ill patients and their partners, using the Actor-Partner-Interdependence Model (APIM) under consideration of contextual factors (age, gender, length of partnership). The Post-traumatic Stress Scale (PTSS-10) and Euro-Quality of Life (EQ-5D-3L) were applied in both the patients and their partners, within up to 6 months after the transfer from acute care ICU to post-acute ICU.ResultsClinically relevant post-traumatic stress symptoms were reported by 17.1% of the patients and 18.6% of the partners. Both the chronically critically ill patients and their partners with more severe post-traumatic stress symptoms also showed a decreased health-related QoL. The latter was more pronounced in male partners compared to female partners or female patients. In younger partners (≤ 57 years), higher values of post-traumatic stress symptoms were associated with a decreased QoL in the patients.ConclusionsMental health screening and psychotherapeutic treatment options should be offered to both the chronically critically ill patients and their partners. Future research is required to address the special needs of younger patient-partner dyads, following protracted ICU treatment.Trial RegistrationGerman Clinical Trials Register No. DRKS00003386 . Registered 13 November 2011.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…