title: Intensive care unit patient follow-up. Mortality, functional status, and return to work at six months.
abstract: Six months after hospital discharge, we followed up 1545 patients who had received care in the general medical-surgical intensive care unit (ICU) of a tertiary care hospital. Vital status could not be ascertained for 200 of these patients. Of the 1345 former ICU patients for whom a determination of vital status could be made, 1261 (94%) were alive and 84 (6%) had died. Of those known to be living, 887 (70%) responded to a questionnaire regarding employment, functional, and social status. A large proportion of survivors less than 40 years of age had returned to work. Younger patients admitted to the hospital for elective surgery reported as much compromise of physical and psychological activity as did older patients admitted for emergency reasons. Older survivors reported an increase of interaction with family members and a decrease of social interaction with those other than family.
authors.affiliation: Division of Public Health, School of Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Mundt
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Gage
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lemeshow
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pastides
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Teres
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Avrunin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003422:Critical Care; D004651:Employment; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006262:Health; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D011379:Prognosis