ArticleNursing in critical care2025
Dream Experiences During Intensive Care Unit Stay: Occurrence, Content, Vividness and Associated Factors.
Article in Nursing in critical care, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Dream Experiences During Intensive Care Unit Stay: Occurrence, Content, Vividness and Associated Factors.Nursing in critical care · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundVivid dream experiences in the intensive care unit (ICU) are common, but poorly understood.
aimWe investigated the occurrence, vividness, content, emotional impact and associated factors of dream experiences in the ICU. STUDY
designRetrospective mixed methods study with subjects ≥ 18 years, previously admitted to the ICU for ≥ 4 days and/or due to COVID-19, who were not sedated for ≥ 24 h during their stay (n = 80). Participants answered a retrospective questionnaire by telephone. Clinical data were collected from electronic health records.
resultsThe questionnaires were taken a median of 9 months post-discharge. Dream experiences were reported by 79%. Of participants who recollected dream experiences, 73% reported "life-like" dreams, 49% associated their dreams with negative emotions and 54% said their dreams impacted them even after awaking. Some participants (28.6%) continued to have similar dreams at home. After being asked if they had additional comments, some participants suggest receiving information during their hospital stay about the potential for vivid dream experiences could be beneficial. The dream content was often related to the ICU admission. Younger age and longer length of stay were related to vivid dream experiences. Of participants with dream experiences 62.5% had experienced delirium during their ICU stay. Perceptual disturbances were also frequently reported by participants (50%) and only 45% could clearly distinguish them from dream experiences. There was an overlap between participants reporting perceptual disturbances and confirmed delirium (70%).
conclusionsVivid dream experiences are common in ICU patients and often have a negative emotional impact. Future studies should dive deeper into effective ways to distinguish dreams, delirium and perceptual disturbances and how to reduce their impact. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: ICU nurses should be aware of the occurrence and psychological burden of vivid negative dreams in ICU patients. Providing anticipatory support may help patients process these experiences during recovery.
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.