impact of an intensive diary on PTSD

A stay in an intensive care unit can trigger negative symptoms. Many patients suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after discharge. To counteract this, intensive care diaries are being kept in some countries, such as increasingly in England and the Scandinavian countries. These written records are intended to help former patients make sense of and understand their time in hospital, in order to counteract the after-effects of intensive care treatment. The aim of this study is to demonstrate, particularly to those working in the medical and nursing sectors, whether the use of an intensive care diary in intensive care units has an impact on patients' PTSD symptoms following discharge from the unit. The research question was addressed through a systematic literature review using the Google Scholar search engine, the CINAHL, PubMed, Springer and Thieme databases, various specialist journals and the medical university library at Vienna General Hospital (AKH).