Recovery After Critical Illness: A Meta-Ethnography of Patient, Family and Staff Perspectives.
Elizabeth King, Owen Gustafson, Annabel Williams and 3 others
PMID 41036634WHAT IT FOUND
Critical illness survivors described persistent weakness, pain and dependence that made them feel burdensome.
Families struggled to access follow-up rehabilitation and information after discharge. Staff also reported unclear post-discharge care.
Key findings
01The synthesis grouped recovery experiences into four themes: surviving but not thriving, healthcare focused on saving life rather than long-term recovery, family burden, and persistent body problems.
02Patients and families struggled to get follow-up care and information after discharge, while staff reported no agreement about which patients should be invited to ICU follow-up clinics.
03Patients continued to struggle with loss of muscle strength and low energy even when they carefully followed recovery recommendations such as an exercise regime.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This is a qualitative evidence synthesis of experiences, not a test of whether rehabilitation works. The authors planned to focus on physical impairments but could not separate them from broader biopsychosocial recovery experiences. Some included studies used long recall intervals, and dyadic interviews were used, which may have affected what patients and families said. Only one included study was from a low-to-middle income country, and none reported ethnicity, socioeconomic status or health literacy. The search did not specifically target physical impairment terms because few studies focused on that alone.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The work was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Oxford Biomedical Research Centre and Oxford Brookes University.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat these themes as evidence that any specific rehabilitation programme works. The paper synthesises experiences and perceptions, not tested interventions, and the authors could not separate physical impairment from broader recovery experiences.