Psychological Impact of COVID-19 on Intensive Care Survivors

The primary objective is to identify the proportion of patients surviving an admission to intensive care due to COVID-19 who experience anxiety, depression and/or trauma symptoms in the 6 months post discharge.

Whilst the secondary objectives are to identify demographic, clinical, physical and/or psychosocial predictors of depression, anxiety and/or trauma symptoms at 3-, 6- and 12-months post discharge from ICU. And to assess the feasibility of using a self-reported online questionnaire to assess anxiety, depression and/or trauma symptoms in patients following ICU admission.

An amendment was approved by the East Midlands - Derby Research Ethics Committee on 17 March 2022, to conduct three sub-studies:

• Semi-structured interviews - to explore the experiences of critical care survivors following COVID-19 infection during their recovery phase, including perceptions about the care received and support available to them.
• Survey of follow-up services offered to ICU survivors - to assess geographical differences in the availability and structure of follow-up services offered to patients with critical COVID-19 after hospital discharge.
• Survey of study team members - to gain feedback from the study team members on their involvement in the study.

Inclusion criteria

• Adult patients ≥18 years
• Survival to intensive care / high dependency unit discharge following an admission of ≥24 hours
• Treated for COVID-19

Exclusion criteria

• Unable to complete questionnaires
• Unable or unwilling to consent
• Unable to speak, understand or communicate in English
• Patients with diagnosed, pre-existing cognitive impairment (at the time of ICU admission)
• Patients without a fixed abode, at which postal questionnaires might be received, and who have no access to a personal email address.