Recovery of Patients From COVID-19 After Critical Illness

Patients who are critically ill with COVID-19 requiring life support in an intensive care unit (ICU) have increased risk of morbidity and mortality. Currently the ICU community does not know what effect the disease, the ICU admission, physiotherapy interventions and life support have on their long-term quality of life and whether they can return to their pre-illness level of function following ICU.

COVID-Recovery will describe the physiotherapy interventions delivered to critically ill patients with COVID-19. In survivors, COVID-Recovery will utilise telephone follow-up of ICU survivors to assess disability-free survival and quality of life at 6 months after ICU admission. Additionally, COVID-Recovery will identify if there are predictors of disability-free survival. COVID-Recovery will aim to select up to 300 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 from ICUs in Australia. If they survive to hospital discharge, patients will be invited to receive a telephone questionnaire at 6 months after the ICU admission that aims to assess their long-term outcomes, including physical, cognitive and emotional function, quality of life, and whether they have been able to return to work following ICU discharge.

To describe the experience of critical illness in survivors of COVID-19 and their family members.

To explore and describe functional recovery, respiratory system function and respiratory health morbidity up to 6 months after ICU admission in persistently critically ill adults with COVID-19