Post-intensive Care Follow-up of Patients Hospitalized for an Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Caused by COVID-19

For the last years, studies have described the " Post-intensive care Syndrome " (PICS), which consists in alteration of quality of life, cognition, autonomy and psychological disorders within the months after intensive-care. Patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units are at high risks to develop PICS. The primary objective is to analyse the incidence of the post-traumatic stress disorder at 12 months after intensive-care for a COVID-19 Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS).

Many studies have showed that ARDS survivors keep, even a long time after hospitalization, a functional respiratory disability, resulting on one hand from impaired diffusion of carbon monoxide, and on the other hand from a muscular weakness. Indeed, 67% of patients ventilated more than 10 days have a neuromyopathy whose recovery is uncertain. Beside this, Long-term quality of life is worse than in general population, due in particular to depressive and anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic syndrome disorder with a prevalence around 22% after one year. The follow-up will consist in phone call with an intensive care doctor. These visits would be the opportunity to screen the complications after intensive-care with, find solutions to cure them or decrease their impact on patient's life to improve quality of life and prevent the post-traumatic syndrome disorder PTSD. A review would be sent to the patients' General Practitioners at the end of each visit.