Title Changes in the quality of life in patients with prolonged stay in the intensive care unit and risk factors related to the changes /
Translation of Title Ligonių, ilgai gydytų intensyviosios terapijos skyriuje, gyvenimo kokybės pokyčiai ir jų rizikos veiksniai.
Authors Klimašauskas, Andrius
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Pages 43
Keywords [eng] Health related quality of life ; SF-36 score ; Intensive care unit ; Long term treatment
Abstract [eng] The doctoral dissertation investigates changes in health-related quality of life for long-term intensive care patients prior to ICU admission and 6 months after ICU discharge, exploring into the causes of impaired quality of life and the relationship between the quality of life and post-ICU mortality. It has already been established that the quality of life decreases after treatment in the intensive care unit. However, factors that have the strongest effect on the quality of life in ICU patients have not been identified. Information on post-ICU quality of life in long-term intensive care patients is particularly scarce. The findings of our research confirmed that long term treatment in the intensive care unit has major implications for the physical domains of health-related quality of life. The findings evidence that severity of illness on the first day in the ICU, number of therapeutic interventions upon ICU discharge and severe critical illness neuromuscular abnormalities are associated with impaired quality of life, while duration of mechanical ventilation is the factor with the strongest effect on reduced quality of life. Likewise, the findings demonstrate that usual systems for identification of severity of illness are not useful for predicting mortality in patients after discharge from the intensive care unit. Yet, identification of pre-ICU physical activity allows predicting post-ICU mortality.
Type Summaries of doctoral thesis
Language English
Publication date 2011