Intensive Care Unit: an unexplored field by the psychologist in Chile

Abstract

In our country there are no psychologists who work in intensive or intermediate health services: where the so-called "critical patient" is found. Patients admitted to the critical care unit, by definition, are serious and during the last 20 years intensive care units have become an essential part of almost all general hospitals; established institutions change the layout of the space available to create them, no new one is built without such units. Its value is proven in the treatment of the seriously ill.

In these units, with peculiar physical and technical characteristics, several aspects are combined that make up a special and unusual psychological atmosphere, which generates some effects on the patient, psychological and psychiatric effects that require the attention and action of a specialist in the subject.

I think that our professional psychologists would have a lot to contribute in this sense, a lot to say and do, especially the latter, so that this letter intends to motivate some colleagues to become interested in the subject.