For many critically ill patients, treatment in an intensive care unit (ICU) is very stressful, and for some of the patients it is a traumatic experience. The domains of patient stressors encompass physical stressors, mental health stressors, communication stressors, and environmental stressors. The experience of stressors during ICU is associated with a higher risk of worse outcomes including delirium, delayed recovery, and post-intensive care syndrome (PICS). In the context of inpatient intensive care medicine, health care professionals (HCP) have problems to correctly rate the extent of their patients' stress.~In this study, we examine the feasibility and efficacy of a stressor-reporting system based on a mobile application (app), which allows critically ill patients to evaluate by themselves the intensity of their stressors, and thus, to communicate their stress experience to HCPs.~In the first assessment phase of this study, outcome data of a cohort of n=20 patients will be collected (cohort A). Participants of cohort A will not use the ICU Feel Better App. In the second phase, outcome data of another n=20 patients (cohort B) will be collected. Participants of cohort B will have the opportunity to use the ICU Feel Better App from the second day after admission to the ICU until the day of discharge from ICU.
This study examines the feasibility and efficacy of a mobile application (app), which enables critically ill patients to report perceived patient stressors to their caregivers.