As COVID-19 engulfed U.S. hospitals in wave after wave in 2020, families were often cut off from their hospitalized loved ones, or visitation was severely limited, especially in the beginning of the pandemic.
Now, whether their beloveds lived or died, a majority of the family members themselves are showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study has found.
Of 330 family members surveyed three months after their kin had been hospitalized for COVID, 64% scored highly on tests measuring PTSD symptoms, the researchers found. While pre-pandemic PTSD among family members of ICU patients was about 30%, COVID more than doubled that.
