Malestar Psicológico y Estrés Postraumático en Pacientes Críticos y Familiares.

Experiences in intensive care units (ICU) can have a psychological impact on patients and their relatives. Therefore, a prospective cohort study was designed to assess this psychological impact in patients and relatives of an ICU through psychological distress (PD) during hospital admission (broken down into anxiety and depression) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after hospital discharge by: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Beck Deppression Inventory and Impact of event scale revisated. Patients suffered greater PD during admission, but relatives suffered greater PTSD after discharge. The risk factors identified (previous psychotropic drugs, avoidant and non-emotion-focused coping, no university education, functional impairment at ICU discharge, decisions to withhold or withdraw treatment and in-hospital mortality) facilitate the early identification of susceptible populations so interventions could be designed to reduce the likelihood of developing psychopathology after an ICU stay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]