Integrated Psychosocial Care in Intensive Care (IPS-Pilot): Protocol for the Systematic, Multimethod Development of a...

Area of Science:

• Psychosocial health
• Healthcare interventions
• Intensive care medicine

Background:

• Intensive care units (ICUs) impose significant psychosocial strain on healthcare professionals (HCPs), patients, and their families.
• This strain can lead to long-term mental, physical, and occupational consequences.
• Currently, no systematic interventions exist to mitigate these adverse effects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and pilot test an integrated and complex psychosocial care intervention named IPS-Pilot (Integrated Psychosocial Care).
• The intervention is designed for HCPs, patients, and relatives within the ICU setting.
• This protocol focuses on Phase A (development); Phase B (pilot testing) will follow.

Main Methods:

• A structured, multimethod approach was employed, including a scoping umbrella review, qualitative interviews, focus groups, and an online survey.
• Data were gathered from former ICU patients, relatives, ICU HCPs, and the general population.
• Intervention development was guided by the Intervention Mapping framework, incorporating psychosocial theories and stakeholder workshops.

Main Results:

• Four substudies provided insights into the psychosocial needs of target groups.
• Intermediate analyses informed the development of a problem model and an intervention model, suggesting psychologist integration into HCP teams.
• Data collection for intervention development was completed, with further analyses ongoing. Results will be published separately.

Conclusions:

• Phase B will evaluate the feasibility of the developed Integrated Psychosocial Care (IPS) intervention.
• Findings from Phase B will refine the intervention design.
• The refined intervention will serve as the basis for a future randomized controlled trial to assess efficacy.