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Clinical InvestigationsVENTILATIONCaregivers of Long-term Ventilator Patients: Physical and Psychological Outcomes
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
This study was part of a larger prospective longitudinal descriptive study designed to examine outcomes after hospital discharge for patients receiving continuous LTV > 4 days while in the ICU. While the focus of this study was on outcomes after hospital discharge, the eligibility criterion of > 4 days of continuous mechanical ventilation while in the ICU was established while the patient was still in the hospital. A majority of the patients in our sample required no mechanical ventilation
Results
The enrollment period began in February 1997 and ended in August 1998. For a detailed diagram of subject identification and enrollment, see Figure 1. Based on data from a pilot study in which every patient receiving mechanical ventilation in all of the ICUs was tracked for 6 weeks, we established that 25% of all patients admitted to the ICUs received mechanical ventilation, and that 78.5% of all patients receiving mechanical ventilation were ineligible for our study because they received
Discussion
In general, the caregivers of patients receiving LTV demonstrated similar characteristics as found with other groups, but some differences were noted. First, caregivers were relative young and, correspondingly, a greater percentage were employed than had been reported elsewhere (30 to 55%). This may also explain why our sample spent slightly less time in caregiving activities than reported for caregivers of patients with Alzheimer disease or elderly patients (4 to 8.5 h/d) and why our sample
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank Helen Foley, Siobhan Martin, and Toni Ross for their roles in the data collection process.
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This study was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research, Grant No. R01-NR04318.