Background The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused over 530 million infections to date (June 2022), with a high percentage of intensive care unit (ICU) admissions. In this context, relatives have been restricted from visiting their loved ones admitted to hospital. This situation has led to an inevitable separation between patients and their families. Video communication could reduce the negative effects of such phenomenon, but the impact of this strategy on levels of anxiety, depression, and PTSD disorder in caregivers is not well-known. Methods We conducted a prospective study (6 October 2020–18 February 2022) at the Policlinico University Hospital in Catania, including caregivers of both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 ICU patients admitted during the second wave of the pandemic. Video-calls were implemented twice a week. Assessment of anxiety, depression, and PTSD was performed at 1-week distance (before the first, T1, and before the third, video-call, T2) using the following validated questionnaires: Impact of Event Scale (Revised IES-R), Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Results Twenty caregivers of 17 patients completed the study (T1 + T2). Eleven patients survived (n = 9/11 in the COVID-19 and n = 2/6 in the “non-COVID” group). The average results of the questionnaires completed by caregivers between T1 and T2 showed no significant difference in terms of CES-D (T1 = 19.6 ± 10, T2 = 22 ± 9.6; p = 0.17), HADS depression (T1 = 9.5 ± 1.6, T2 = 9 ± 3.9; p = 0.59), HADS anxiety (T1 = 8.7 ± 2.4, T2 = 8.4 ± 3.8; p = 0.67), and IES-R (T1 = 20.9 ± 10.8, T2 = 23.1 ± 12; p = 0.19). Similar nonsignificant results were observed in the two subgroups of caregivers (COVID-19 and “non-COVID”). However, at T1 and T2, caregivers of “non-COVID” patients had higher scores of CES-D (p = 0.01 and p = 0.04, respectively) and IES-R (p = 0.049 and p = 0.02, respectively), while HADS depression was higher only at T2 (p = 0.02). At T1, caregivers of non-survivors had higher scores of CES-D (27.6 ± 10.6 vs 15.3 ± 6.7, p = 0.005) and IES-R (27.7 ± 10.0 vs 17.2 ± 9.6, p = 0.03). We also found a significant increase in CES-D at T2 in ICU-survivors (p = 0.04). Conclusions Our preliminary results showed that a video-call implementation strategy between caregivers and patients admitted to the ICU is feasible. However, this strategy did not show an improvement in terms of the risk of depression, anxiety, and PTSD among caregivers. Our pilot study remains exploratory and limited to a small sample.

Background Sepsis is a leading cause of death and it is characterized not only by profound vasoplegia but also by myocardial dysfunction. Critical care echocardiography is the preferred modality for the initial assessment of the cause of shock. Moreover, it can be extremely helpful in the identification of progressing myocardial dysfunction during the course of sepsis, also known as septic cardiomyopathy. Main body One of the issues in the identification of septic cardiomyopathy is that it can be manifest with different clinical phenotypes, from overt biventricular dysfunction to isolated left ventricular (LV) systolic and/or diastolic dysfunction, from right ventricular (RV) systolic dysfunction to RV failure and dilatation. However, the commonly used echocardiography parameters for the assessment of LV and/or RV function are not always entirely reliable. Indeed, these are influenced by variable preload and afterload conditions imposed by critical illness such as fluid shifts, sedation level and mechanical ventilation with positive pressure. Conclusions Strain echocardiography is a promising tool for the early identification of myocardial dysfunction in the context of sepsis. Studies reporting data on strain echocardiography should be particularly detailed in order to increase the reproducibility of results and to favor comparison with future studies.