Patient follow-up after discharge from the paediatric intensive care unit: A scoping review.
Delphine Micaëlli, Jérôme Naudin, Stéphane Dauger and 2 others
PMID 39421878WHAT IT FOUND
PICU discharge follow-up for children was scattered and mostly research-driven.
Multidisciplinary teams were rare, and no single validated score captured physical, cognitive, emotional, social and family needs.
Key findings
01Of 68 included studies, 88% of follow-up was carried out for research purposes, not formalized clinical follow-up.
02Only 6% of studies (n=4) described follow-up by a multi-professional PICU team, including clinicians, nurses and/or physiotherapists.
03Follow-up methods differed between studies, with questionnaires used in 45%, databases in 34% and interviews in 28%.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for SLPsWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The included studies were highly heterogeneous, including quantitative, qualitative, mixed, feasibility and pilot studies. Most included studies were retrospective cohorts (82%), and only one randomized controlled trial was identified. No risk-of-bias assessment was performed, so the review maps practices rather than judging their quality or effects. Most follow-up was research-driven rather than clinical care, so it may not reflect routine practice. Neonatal populations and grey literature were excluded, and the search did not focus on family members, so relevant follow-up and family impacts may be missing.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest relevant to the article.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this review as evidence that any post-PICU follow-up model improves outcomes. It mapped existing modalities and did not assess bias or treatment effects.