Estimates from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic suggest that about 20% of adults with COVID-19 are hospitalized, and in approximately 20% of those, severe acute respiratory failure develops that requires life-support treatments such as invasive mechanical ventilation.1,2 Results of research from before the COVID-19 pandemic suggest that most of these adults with critical illness will survive to hospital discharge.3,4 Survival, for many, will come with a legacy of new or worsening deficits in physical,5 mental,6,7 or cognitive health in the months to years after hospital discharge.8,9 Post–intensive care syndrome has become the agreed-upon term for these new or worsening health problems that can persist beyond an acute hospitalization for serious illness.8
The psychosocial outcomes in survivors of critical illness include high rates of clinically significant anxiety,10 depression,11 and posttraumatic stress symptoms.12 Related,...