Abstract: Objective: To explore the effect of ICU diary on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among adult patients in ICU. Methods: Totally 98 adult patients in ICU were enrolled and were randomly divided into the experimental group and the control group. Patients in the control group were with adopted routine nursing, whereas patients in the experimental group were kept ICU diary based on the routine nursing. The event impact score and the incidence of PTSD were compared between the two groups in the first and third months after leaving ICU. Results: There were significant differences between the score of event impact scale (24.70±10.61 vs 34.77±12.70, P<0.001) and the incidence of PTSD (52.17% vs 81.40%, P=0.007) in the first month after ICU among patients in the experimental group and the control group, and the score of event impact scale and the positive rate of PTSD in the experimental group were lower than those in the control group. However, there were no significant differences in the two variables between the two groups at the third month (P>0.05). Conclusion: ICU diary can reduce the incidence of PTSD in patients one month after their transfer out of ICU.

Key words: ICU; diary; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; effect