Patients’ primary activities prior to critical illness: how well do clinicians know them and how likely are patients to return to them?

Excerpt

Admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) can make patients feel anonymous and depersonalized [1]. Knowledge of a patient’s primary activity can mitigate the risk of depersonalization by providing insight into a patient’s values, preferences, and overall function. A patient’s primary activity is defined by how they report spending their free time. This information can be used to engage in shared decision-making, ensuring patients receive care that is goal-concordant based on the feasibility of recovering from their critical illness [2]. Therefore, we conducted a prospective observational study to determine if ICU physicians and nurses could identify their patients’ primary activities. Other objectives included determining if patients were able to return to these activities and the probability of patients surviving based on their primary activity. …