Background During COVID-19 pandemic, visits have been prohibited in most French ICUs. Psychological effects, for reference persons (RPs), of remote-only communication have been assessed. Methods All RPs of patients referred to ICU for COVID-19 were included. HADS, IES-R, and satisfaction were evaluated at admission, discharge/death, and 3 months. At 3 months, a psychologist provided a qualitative description of RPs’ psychological distress. Results Eighty-eight RPs were included. Prevalence of anxiety and depression was 83% and 73% respectively. At 3 months, lower HADS decrease was associated with patient death/continued hospitalization, and/or sleeping disorders in RPs ( p < 0.01). Ninety-nine percent RPs felt the patient was safe (9 [7; 10]/10 points, Likert-type scale), confident with caregivers (10 [9; 10]/10 points), and satisfied with information provided (10 [9; 10]/10 points). All RPs stressed the specific-type of “responsibility” associated with being an RP in a remote-only context, leading RPs to develop narrow diffusion strategies (67%) and restrict the array of contacted relatives to a very few and/or only contacting them rarely. 10 RPs (30%) related the situation to a prior traumatic experience. Conclusion RPs experienced psychological distress and reported that being an RP in a remote-only communication context was a specific responsibility and qualified it as an overall negative experience. Trial registration NCT04385121 . Registered 12 May 2020. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ . Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40560-020-00520-w.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19; Reference person; Relative; Anxiety; Depression; Distress, 【초록키워드】 COVID-19, Anxiety, Depression, Hospitalization, COVID-19 pandemic, ICU, Patient, Psychological distress, information, Admission, Satisfaction, Safe, supplementary material, ICUs, IES-R, disorder, French, diffusion, HADS, Effects, decrease, Result, develop, reported, the patient, evaluated, provided, restrict, 【제목키워드】 COVID-19 pandemic, Effect, ICU patient,