Quality of life after intensive care with the sickness impact profile.

OBJECTIVES

a) to validate the structure of the Sickness Impact Profile scale (SIP) when applied to intensive care patients after discharge from the hospital; b) to explore the influence of age upon the various components of quality of life.

DESIGN

Prospective study.

SETTING

Patients admitted to 36 Dutch ICUs.

METHODS

6,247 patients out of 13,000 consecutive admissions to the ICUs answered a SIP questionnaire 6 months after discharge from the hospital. The 3,655 returned questionnaire were analyzed after aggregating the respondents into 6 age groups: from group 1: 17-29 up to group 4: > 70 years of age.

INTERVENTION

Self-administration of SIP one year after discharge, measuring 5 independent categories (IC) and two dimensions: physical (PD) and psychosocial (PSD).

RESULTS

The total SIP-score oscillated between 5.8 +/- 8.2 (group I) and 10.5 +/- 9.5 (group 4). Group 3 had also a high score (9.4 +/- 11.2). Overall, the quality of life of patients was dominated by dysfunction on the categories composing the physical dimension, with exception of patients with ages between 30 and 50 years, in which dysfunction on the categories composing the psychosocial dimension was dominant. The structure of the SIP in the study was similar to that described to the original instrument.

CONCLUSIONS

The study validated the use of the SIP QOL-instrument on patients after intensive care. Age influenced consistently the various components of quality of life.