How to humanise the COVID-19 intensive care units
Veronica Rivi, Gabriele Melegari, Johanna Maria Catharina Blom
Abstract
The COVID-19 is altering the way patients and families endure illness and death. To mitigate the spread of the virus, patient isolation and visitor restrictions in hospitals have been implemented at a scale never seen before. This means that once hospitalised, patients are isolated from their families until discharge. There remains a sort of undefined mental space of wondering if this is a temporary separation or a step towards final departure.1 2 At the same time, outside the hospitals, there are the relatives of patients waiting anxiously for updates. In some cases, because of the exposure to patients, they are quarantined and may live with the feelings of guilt and anxiety of having unwittingly contributed to the spread of the illness. This traumatic separation could make both patients and relatives vulnerable to different degrees of stress disorders as well as depression and anxiety.3 Because these symptoms will likely continue even after the pandemic has subsided, virtual and/or on-site psychological support should be proposed promptly to patients and their families during the hospitalisation and after discharge from the hospital.3 Social isolation during the COVID-19 outbreak also means that patients often die without family and significant others by their side. The patient’ relatives, in turn, are …