Psychological Stress in Families of Children in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

In recent years tremendous growth and development of pediatric intensive care units has occurred. New units have been established, and new forms of therapy have been introduced for the critically ill child. Children who in the past were too sick to move are being transported to referral centers sometimes hundreds of miles away. Children who would have died from respiratory failure are being saved with modern techniques of ventilation; children with intracranial disease are being monitored and treated to prevent intracranial hypertension; dialysis is readily available for children with renal failure.