Assessing oral comprehension with an eye tracking based innovative device in critically ill patients and healthy volunteers: a cohort study

PURPOSE: Communication of caregivers and relatives to patients is a major difficulty in intensive care units (ICU). Patient’s comprehension capabilities are variable over time and traditional comprehension tests cannot be implemented. Our purpose was to evaluate an oral comprehension test adapted for its automatic implementation using eye-tracking technology among ICU patients. METHODS: Prospective bi-centric cohort study was conducted on 60 healthy volunteers and 53 ICU patients. Subjects underwent an oral comprehension test using an eye-tracking device: Their results and characteristics were collected. The total duration of the test was 2 and a half minutes. RESULTS: While performing the test, 48 patients (92%) received invasive ventilation. Among healthy volunteers, the median rate of right answers was very high (93% [interquartile range 87, 100]), whereas it was lower (33% [20, 67]) for patients. For both groups, a significantly lower right answers rate was observed with advancing age (67% [27, 80] vs. 27% [20, 38] among patients and 93% [93, 100] vs. 87% [73, 93] among healthy volunteers, below and above 60 years of age, respectively) and in case of lack of a bachelor’s degree (60% [38, 87] vs. 27% [20, 57] among patients and 93% [93, 100] vs. 87% [73, 93] among healthy volunteers). For patients, the higher the severity of disease was, the lower the rate of correct answers was. CONCLUSION: The eye-tracking-adapted comprehension test is easy and fast to use among ICU patients, and results seem coherent with various potential levels of comprehension as hypothesized in this study. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13054-022-04137-3.