The effects of a sensory stimulation intervention on psychosocial and clinical outcomes of critically ill patients and their families: A randomised controlled trial

Objectives: To explore the effectiveness of a sensory stimulation intervention on intensive care unit patients' psychosocial, clinical, and family outcomes.Design: A prospective, assessor-blind, parallel-group randomised controlled trial. Setting: A surgical intensive care unit of one tertiary hospital in Guangzhou, mainland China.Intervention: Participants in the intervention group received a daily 30-minute auditory and visual stimulation session starting from recruitment and for a maximum of seven days while in the intensive care unit.Measurement and main results: One hundred fifty-two patients and family caregiver dyads were recruited. Patients in the intervention group showed lower total scores of post-traumatic stress disorder (21.92 +/- 6.34 vs 27.62 +/- 10.35, p = 0.001), depressive symptoms (3.76 +/- 3.99 vs 6.78 +/- 4.75, p = 0.001) and delusional memories (0.47 +/- 0.92 vs 0.82 +/- 1.23, p = 0.001) collected immediately post-intervention than those in the control group, while not on depressive symptoms at one-month post-intervention (3.32 +/- 4.03 vs 3.28 +/- 3.77, p = 0.800). Sensory stimulation did not significantly impact patients' unit length of stay and 30-day mortality (all p > 0.05). For family outcomes, family caregivers in the intervention group had greater satisfaction with care (127.12 +/- 14.14 vs 114.38 +/- 21.97, p = 0.001) and a lower level of anxiety (28.49 +/- 6.48 vs 34.64 +/- 7.68, p = 0.001) than family caregivers in the control group.Conclusions: Sensory stimulation may benefit patients' and family caregivers' psychological well-being, and further well-designed multi-centre clustered randomized controlled trials could be considered to strengthen the evidence.

Automated summary

This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of a sensory stimulation intervention on intensive care unit patients' psychosocial, clinical, and family outcomes. The results showed that patients and family caregivers who received the sensory stimulation intervention had better psychological well-being and higher satisfaction with care. This study has important clinical significance and practical value.