One Nation Under Stress

One Nation Under Stress

In an eye-opening new film, Dr Sanjay Gupta explores the link between stress and the continuing fall in US life expectancy. In the documentary, which premiered on HBO, Gupta speaks with scientists, affected individuals and... read more

The Continuing Saga of Nurse Staffing

The Continuing Saga of Nurse Staffing

Registered nurses are the backbone of America's health systems, providing care and support to patients across the lifespan. Appropriate nurse staffing is critical to ensure safe and effective care for patients. Nurse staffing... read more

The Effects of Family Functioning on the Development of Posttraumatic Stress in Children and Their Parents Following Admission to the PICU

The Effects of Family Functioning on the Development of Posttraumatic Stress in Children and Their Parents Following Admission to the PICU

Both children and parents have alarmingly high rates of acute stress and posttraumatic stress following the child's PICU admission. Although family function did not emerge as a predictor in this study, further understanding... read more

The Effect of Diaries Written by Relatives for ICU Patients on PTSD

The Effect of Diaries Written by Relatives for ICU Patients on PTSD

The results of this study will inform ICU nurses about the effects, strengths and limitations of prompting relatives to author a diary for the patient. This will allow the diary intervention to be tailored to the individual... read more

A Randomized Trial of Glutamine and Antioxidants in Critically Ill Patients

A Randomized Trial of Glutamine and Antioxidants in Critically Ill Patients

Critically ill patients have considerable oxidative stress. Glutamine and antioxidant supplementation may offer therapeutic benefit, although current data are conflicting. In this blinded 2-by-2 factorial trial, we randomly... read more

A Surprising Way to Decrease Stress in Nursing

A Surprising Way to Decrease Stress in Nursing

What if I told you that it wasn't the patient load that was actually stressing nurses out in the workplace? Would you believe me? Most nurses go into the profession of nursing to care for sick patients. So even those days... read more

3 Tools Doctors Can Use to Prevent Burnout

3 Tools Doctors Can Use to Prevent Burnout

A broad-based study published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings in 2015 using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) found that 54.4 percent of all physicians combined were experiencing at least one symptom of burnout, and there... read more

Even Proper Technique Exposes Nurses’ Spines To Dangerous Forces

Even Proper Technique Exposes Nurses’ Spines To Dangerous Forces

In this close-up screenshot from a simulation video, you can see the exact moment NPR correspondent Daniel Zwerdling endured dangerous levels of stress on his spine while re-creating the way nurses push their patients in... read more

Patient-important outcomes in randomized controlled trials in critically ill patients

Patient-important outcomes in randomized controlled trials in critically ill patients

Patient-important outcomes are rarely primary outcomes in RCTs in critically ill patients published in 2013. Among them, mortality accounted for the majority. We promote the use of patient-important outcomes in critical care... read more

The Psychological Impact of Intensive Care

The Psychological Impact of Intensive Care

A period in intensive care is known to negatively affect patients' long term physical, cognitive and psychiatric health, in what's known as post-intensive care syndrome (PICS). Researchers from the University of Oxford sought... read more

The Year They Tried to Kill Me: Surviving a Surgical Internship… Even If the Patients Don’t

The Year They Tried to Kill Me: Surviving a Surgical Internship… Even If the Patients Don’t

Not exactly the warm welcome I hoped for. But I was just a naive Wisconsin boy, fresh out of medical school and new to Oakland, California. I chose Highland Hospital for my surgical internship: an entire year filled with... read more

Humanizing the ICU

Humanizing the ICU

In the midst of trying to correct organ failures, clinicians may neglect to carefully consider what the patient is experiencing: to be on the brink of death, be unable to speak, be stripped naked, have strangers enter the... read more

Systematic Review of the Effects of ICU Noise on Sleep of Healthy Subjects and the Critically Ill

Systematic Review of the Effects of ICU Noise on Sleep of Healthy Subjects and the Critically Ill

ICU patients exhibit disturbed sleeping patterns, often attributed to environmental noise, although the relative contribution of noise compared to other potentially disrupting factors is often debated. We therefore systematically... read more

ICU RN Job Dissatisfaction, Burnout Linked to Moral Distress

ICU RN Job Dissatisfaction, Burnout Linked to Moral Distress

Job satisfaction and practice environment are associated with moral distress among critical care nurses, according to a study published online Jan. 3 in the American Journal of Critical Care. The researchers found that 56... read more

Poor Hospital Design Has an Impact on Staff, Patients, and Healthcare

Poor Hospital Design Has an Impact on Staff, Patients, and Healthcare

Many hospitals in which I have worked have struggled with finances over the last 5 years. There has often been a ban on capital investment on new physical infrastructure projects even extended to repairs in some circumstances.... read more

Benzodiazepine Use and Neuropsychiatric Outcomes in the ICU

Benzodiazepine Use and Neuropsychiatric Outcomes in the ICU

The majority of included studies indicated that benzodiazepine use in the ICU is associated with delirium, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and cognitive dysfunction. Future well-designed studies... read more

Vitamin C: Should We Supplement?

A short course of intravenous vitamin C in pharmacological dose seems a promising, well tolerated, and cheap adjuvant therapy to modulate the overwhelming oxidative stress in severe sepsis, trauma, and reperfusion after ischemia.... read more