COVID-19 pandemic in the intensive care unit: Psychological implications and interventions, a systematic review

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic produced changes in intensive care units (ICUs) in patient care and health organizations. The pandemic event increased patients' risk of developing psychological symptoms during and after hospitalisation. These consequences also affected those family members who could not access the hospital. In addition, the initial lack of knowledge about the virus and its management, the climate of fear and uncertainty, the increased workload and the risk of becoming infected and being contagious, had a strong impact on healthcare staff and organizations. This highlighted the importance of interventions aimed at providing psychological support to ICUs, involving patients, their relatives, and the staff; this might involve the reorganisation of the daily routine and rearrangement of ICU staff duties.

Aim: To conduct a systematic review of psychological issues in ICUs during the COVID-19 pandemic involving patients, their relatives, and ICU staff.

Methods: We investigated the PubMed and the ClinicalTrials.gov databases and found 65 eligible articles, upon which we commented.

Results: Our results point to increased perceived stress and psychological distress in staff, patients and their relatives and increased worry for being infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 in patients and relatives. Furthermore, promising results were obtained for some psychological programmes aiming at improving psychological measures in all ICU categories.

Conclusion: As the pandemic limited direct inter-individual interactions, the role of interventions using digital tools and virtual reality is becoming increasingly important. All considered, our results indicate an essential role for psychologists in ICUs.