SynthesisIntensive care medicine2021
Exploring family members' and health care professionals' perceptions on ICU diaries: a systematic review and qualitative data synthesis.
Synthesis in Intensive care medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Key Insights From the International ICU Diary Conference 2025.Nursing in critical care · 2026Article
- Hidden Burden of ICU: Patient-Perceived Stressors After Cardiothorasic Surgery.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Article
- Developing implementation strategies for digital ICU diaries targeting ICU professionals: an implementation mapping approach.Implementation science communications · 2025Article
- The implementation and impact of narrative diaries in neonatal intensive care units: A scoping review.Nursing in critical care · 2025Article
- Unmasking the hidden aftermath: postintensive care unit sequelae, discharge preparedness, and long-term follow-up.Critical care science · 2024Review
- Thematic analysis of intensive care unit diaries kept by staff: insights for caring.Intensive & critical care nursing · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeAlthough the intensive care unit (ICU) diary has been proposed as a tool for preventing psychiatric symptoms in survivors of critical illness, relatives and health care providers may benefit from it too. This study aims to summarize the current qualitative evidence on families' and health care professionals' experiences of writing in and reading the ICU diaries.
methodsWe searched MEDLINE, OVID, Embase, and EBSCOhost from inception to February 2021, and included all the studies that presented any qualitative finding regarding relatives' and health care providers' experiences of writing in and reading an ICU diary. We used modified Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) and Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative Research (CERQual) for quality assessment. A thematic synthesis approach was used to analyze and synthesize the qualitative data.
resultsTwenty-eight studies were analyzed (15 including family members and 13 including health care professionals). For family members, the ICU diary is an important source of medical information, provides a way for them to register their presence at patient's bedside and express their feelings, and contributes to humanizing the ICU staff. This impression is shared by relatives of patients who did not survive critical illness. Health care providers believe the diary is beneficial for themselves and others; however, they are concerned with possible negative impressions from patients and family that could lead to judicial problems. They also remark on several obstacles they face when constructing the diaries (workload, creativity, and environment for writing), which can make it a distressful process.
conclusionThis qualitative synthesis shows that family members and health care professionals consider the ICU diary a valuable intervention. It also brings evidence to challenges faced during diary writing, which should be carefully approached in order to reduce the stress associated with this process.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.