Assessment Tool for Post-Intensive Care Syndrome: A Modified Delphi Process

Background Post-Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS) describes new or worsening impairments in physical, cognitive, or mental health status that occur after critical illness and persist beyond hospitalization. There is no existing holistic assessment tool that detects PICS symptoms in an inpatient setting. Methodology The purpose of the study is to modify a current assessment tool, the Healthy Aging Brain Care Monitor Self-Report Version (HABC-M SR), developed to detect PICS symptoms, using a modified Delphi process. The 20-30 expert panelists, consisting of five inpatient healthcare disciplines, completed three rounds of Qualtrics email surveys. The surveys consisted of lists of potential items for each subscale—physical/functional, psychological, and cognitive. Results The 20-30 expert panelists, consisting of five inpatient healthcare disciplines, completed three rounds of Qualtrics email surveys. Expert panelists used a five-point Likert scale to reduce each subscale to 10-15 items. Items that scored a mean of 3.5 or higher moved on to the next round. The panel achieved a 75% consensus after two rounds. Discussion and Conclusion Limitations include a decreased second-round response rate, an expert panel with limited heterogeneity, and limited panelist input due to a lack of provided open-ended text boxes for suggestions. Occupational therapists could utilize the Modified HABC-M SR to identify PICS symptoms, provide objective data to show progress, strengthen clinician-patient communication, and help identify barriers to improve long-term health outcomes. The Delphi process successfully modified the HABC-M SR to have pertinent items for an inpatient setting in each subscale.