ArticleJournal of human nutrition and dietetics : the official journal of the British Dietetic Association2026
Nutritional Recovery After Critical Illness: A Qualitative Study of ICU Survivors' Experiences After Hospital Discharge.
Article in Journal of human nutrition and dietetics : the official journal of the British Dietetic Association, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionSubstantial and persistent barriers to achieving adequate nutritional intake exist for adult survivors of critical illness in the year following hospital discharge. Despite the clear burden, nutrition rehabilitation remains a largely neglected component of post-ICU recovery. Greater understanding of lived experiences is needed to inform person-centred dietetic interventions. The aim was to explore how survivors of critical illness describe, interpret, and navigate their nutritional recovery after hospital discharge, and the personal, relational, and systemic factors that shape these experiences.
methodsA qualitative study adopted a narrative enquiry approach to elicit participants lived experiences and stories using in-depth interviews. The Transtheoretical Model was used as a sensitising concept that emerged during analysis. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling, and sample size determined using information power. Narrative analysis and reflexive thematic analysis was used.
resultsSixteen participants (11 women, 5 men) took part (median age 53 years; median of 2.4 years since discharge). Four coexisting themes were identified: (1) Eating in the shadow of critical illness, (2) Nutritional care that worked (3) Unmet nutritional needs, and (4) What we wish we'd had. Integration of narrative and thematic analysis revealed two broad nutritional recovery processes, an enabling and a constraining recovery process, shaped by psychological readiness, agency, relational support, and access to care.
conclusionsNutritional recovery after critical illness is dynamic and multidimensional shaped not only by physical symptoms, but also by trauma, identity disruption, readiness to change, relational environments and systemic support. These findings provide groundwork for person-centred dietetic interventions following hospital discharge.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.