Psychiatric morbidity in intensive care unit patients

Abstract

Background: Numerous studies have established a higher incidence of psychiatric disorders among general hospital inpatients. Hence we explored if patients in the Intensive Care Units have more psychiatric morbidity due to their longer stay, more critical health conditions, and other stressors. Materials and Methods: A total of 100 patients in the MICU were interviewed using the Symptom Checklist Revised (SCL-90-R) once they got stabilized and just before they were transferred to a step-down ward. Results: Nearly 52% of the participants had no psychiatric morbidity. 36% had mild and 12% had moderate psychiatric morbidity as per the SCL-90-R Scale. There was no participant with severe psychiatric morbidity. Factors such as age, gender, educational level, or duration of stay had no significant influence on the outcome. Among the psychiatric manifestations, interpersonal sensitivity and somatization were found to be the most prevalent symptoms at 60.3% and 59.1%, respectively. Conclusion: Psychiatric morbidity is high among patients in Intensive Care Units, and severity of presentation may also be more than that in general medical patients. Identifying them early and prompt intervention may be necessary to reduce the cost, the duration, and the suffering of the patients.

Keywords

• Intensive care unit patients
• psychiatric morbidity
• psychosomatic disorders