Methods
Aims
To critically review the literature in order to explore: ‘What
is known about how patients experience and understanding
their experience of critical illness?’
This question was asked in order to provide a broad
empirical base and framework for future study in this area
as part of a doctoral thesis by one of the authors (LRC).
Design
The review was influenced by the process of systematic
review described by Hemingway and Brereton (2009) (see
Table 1). Systematic reviews have in recent years increasingly
replaced narrative reviews and expert commentary as a
way of summarising research evidence. However, in this case
the broad inclusion criteria, the inclusion of what might be
considered lower quality studies, and the preliminary level
of synthesis across the studies mean that this review cannot
truly be considered a systematic review.
This review focussed on the exploration of first-hand
experiences of critical illness through research methods that
collected qualitative data in the form of narratives, personal
accounts and dialogue between researcher and participant.
Within the review this was restricted to adults of 18 years
and over.
Search methods
The inclusion criteria for the literature search were: English
language papers, published between 1965 and 2011, where
individuals who had been patients on intensive care units
had been interviewed.
The literature search process involved systematic searching
of electronic databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, British
Nursing Index and Psychinfo) using medical subject headings
(MeSH) including: ‘critical illness’, ‘critical care’, ‘intensive
care units’, ‘Life experiences’ and combination of sets
from these categories. Hand searches of key critical care
journals (Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, Nursing in
Critical Care) as well as ‘incremental’ searching (Hibbert