Psychological Morbidity After Critical Illness

Patients with critical illnesses face a number of severe psychic and physical stressors. Survivors often have long-term cognitive and physical impairments, as well as family, financial, and other stressors. These potential stressors increase the risk of psychiatric disturbances substantially. This chapter describes the burden of distress-related psychiatric morbidity in patients who survive critical illnesses, as well as risk factors for this morbidity. This knowledge serves as the motivation to develop new approaches that can ameliorate, or even prevent, long-term distress in survivors. The chapter also presents information about early attempts to reduce, prevent, and manage long-term psychological morbidity.