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Article History

Received: 19 August 2025

Accepted: 25 February 2026

First Online: 1 March 2026

Declarations

:

: Not applicable. This manuscript does not contain any individual-level identifiable data (including personal details, images, or videos). No identifiable patient quotations are included.

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Bioethics Committee of the Regional Medical Chamber in Zielona Góra, Poland (ref: 03/165/2021). The study comprised two components with different consent requirements. For the retrospective ICU-phase component, anonymized clinical and laboratory data were extracted from routine electronic medical records under an ethics-approved waiver of written informed consent, in accordance with applicable Polish regulations and GDPR provisions for research using de-identified retrospective data. The prospective component consisted of structured telephone follow-up conducted four years after ICU admission; for this part, verbal informed consent was obtained from all interview participants prior to data collection, as approved in the study protocol.