Recovering from the psychological impact of intensive care: how constructing a story helps.
BACKGROUND
Numerous studies have demonstrated both the risk of post-traumatic stress as a result of intensive care unit (ICU) treatment and the efficacy of successful narrative processing for recovery from psychological trauma.


OBJECTIVE
This article is based on recent doctoral research exploring the impact of unanticipated life threats after admission to hospital. It examines the difficulties ICU patients have with constructing coherent narratives of their illness experience and the significance of those difficulties for psychological recovery from critical illness.


METHODS
The original research used a qualitative design blending discourse, narrative, and phenomenological approaches guided by hermeneutical sensitivity to the evolving language of narrative processing. Patients chosen from ICU discharge summaries showing a critical life-threatening event after admission to hospital were interviewed soon after discharge from hospital and then again 1 year later. Unstructured interviews explored participant experience of a critical event and its aftermath.


RESULTS
This article focuses in particular on one finding from the doctoral research. Unanticipated critical illness presented some patients with difficulties in accomplishing the fundamental human task of constructing a narrative of their experience. Risk factors were observed identifying specific vulnerabilities. The extent to which difficulties were overcome impacted positively on the patient's sense of well-being 1 year after discharge.


CONCLUSIONS
In order to recover psychologically, some ICU patients need help overcoming obstacles to their ability to construct an adequately coherent narrative of their experience.


CONCLUSIONS
ICU follow-up clinics could gain increased clarity of purpose from this narrative conceptual framework, eventually evaluating and validating benchmarks for assessing psychological recovery in relation to specified dimensions of narrative processing. Practice development informed by narrative process theory could also enhance ICU nursing communication. Since story construction is central to a person's core identity processes, person-centred nursing would also be implicated.
susanleckywilliams@hotmail.com
Susan Lecky
SL
Williams
D003422:Critical Care / Q000523:psychology*; D016638:Critical Illness / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D033262:Narration