SCCM: ICU Stays Are Traumatic for Kids

Michael Smith
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Explain to parents of a child in intensive care that this study suggests that the experience may have short-term psychological consequences, including hallucinations and nightmares.
Note that this study suggests about one child in three will report such symptoms when interviewed three months later and counsel parents to be alert to the possibility.
This study was published as an abstract and presented orally at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary as they have not yet been reviewed and published in a peer-reviewed publication.

ORLANDO, Feb. 19 -- About a third of all children treated in a pediatric intensive care unit will develop some of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including hallucinations and nightmares, investigators reported here.

"Where are my fingers? This isn't my head."

Those sorts of delusions are common among children not long after treatment in ICUs, psychologist Gillian Colville, M.Phil., of St. Georges Hospital Medical School in London said here at the Critical Care Congress of the Society for Critical Care Medicine.

"In my sample, about one third of children experienced hallucinations or unusually vivid dreams," Dr. Colville said.

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