Incidence of near-death experiences in patients surviving a prolonged critical illness and their long-term impact: a prospective observational study
Critical Care February 27, 2023 A. Rousseau, Laurence Dams, Quentin Massart et al. 26 citations
Among 126 patients with prolonged ICU stays, 15% reported a near-death experience (NDE) as measured by the Greyson scale. Mechanical ventilation, sedation, analgesia, reason for admission, primary organ dysfunction, and dissociative and spiritual propensities were associated with NDE in initial analyses, but only dissociative and spiritual propensity strongly predicted NDE in a multivariate model. At one-year follow-up with 61 patients, NDE was not significantly linked to quality of life. The findings suggest that cognitive and spiritual factors, rather than medical parameters, are the main predictors of NDE recall in the ICU.