A comprehensive scoping review sought to summarize the current landscape of non-pharmacological interventions aimed at improving patient outcomes following discharge from critical care. From over 41,000 reports screened, 202 met the inclusion criteria, revealing a large but uneven body of literature. The most frequently identified interventions were Critical Care Outreach/Follow-up (CCOT/FU), physical rehabilitation, and nutrition support.

CCOT/FU interventions, in particular, often included essential services like onward referrals, ordering investigations, and providing crucial education and support for patients and families transitioning out of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Despite the large volume of literature, the review highlighted significant methodological limitations, particularly the scarcity of high-quality evidence.

Only 31 reports (15.3%) were Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), and very few of those rigorously evaluated promising strategies like CCOT/FU or multicomponent interventions.

Furthermore, there was a widespread lack of reporting regarding how interventions were developed, implemented, or how staff were trained, making it difficult to replicate findings.

The authors suggest that future research should prioritize large-scale clinical trials to robustly evaluate CCOT/FU and multicomponent programs, which showed initial positive results, to integrate them effectively into post-ICU care pathways.

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