COuNselliNg for patiEnts and families after Intensive Care:CONNECT
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Can a dedicated counselling service help alleviate psychological distress among patients and family members after Intensive Care?
IRAS ID
136702
Contact name
Claire Kydonaki
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
NHS Lothian
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 1 days
Research summary
Surviving critical illness is associated with chronic psychological distress. Anxiety persists in 43% of Intensive Care patients and depression in 30% of Intensive Care patients at 12 months after hospital discharge. Post-traumatic stress symptoms (e.g. distressing flashbacks) occur in 51% of patients and 33% of family members. All have significant effects on recovery, family life, social life and return to work. A Scottish study of Intensive Care nurse-led follow-up service, at 3 months after hospital discharge, demonstrated that approximately one third of participants required referral for psychological support, yet these services are rarely available or may have significant waiting lists.
The reported benefits of psychological support among other patient groups (e.g. cancer sufferers) include the alleviation of psychological distress, improved quality of life and enhanced coping (including that of their family members). We would like to find out if counselling would be helpful for patients and families after Intensive Care.In this project, we will pilot a counselling service for patients and families (including the bereaved) after Intensive Care. We will offer a minimum of six counselling sessions and will extend these according to need. We will evaluate our service using validated questionnaires for psychological distress (specifically, anxiety, depression and post traumatic stress).We will also conduct face-to-face interviews with a small number of participants in order to explore, in more detail, whether and how helpful they found the counselling sessions.
REC name
East of Scotland Research Ethics Service REC 1
REC reference
14/ES/1108
Date of REC Opinion
20 Jan 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion