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Many studies have demonstrated anxiety and depression in patients and their family members after an intensive care unit (ICU) stay, and patients commonly report incomplete and disturbing memories of their time in the ICU. French investigators hypothesized that a diary, completed by ICU clinicians and family members with details of patients' time in the ICU, might help resolve some of this distress.
The investigators randomized 657 patients who were receiving mechanical ventilation to use or nonuse of an ICU diary. Clinicians and family members wrote in the diaries regularly in the intervention group. For all patients who survived, a summary note was written by an ICU clinician on the day of transfer out of the ICU, and the patient took the d…