Veterinary intensive care units provide life-saving care to critically ill companion animals. The welfare of ICU patients involves managing both their physical condition and their psychological response to this high-stress environment.
Veterinary ICU welfare reflects the same insights as human ICU welfare: technically life-saving care does not automatically mean high-quality welfare. Critically ill animals in ICUs experience pain, disorientation, unfamiliar environments, and separation from their social group. The psychological welfare of ICU patients — alongside their physical welfare — requires active management: adequate analgesia, environmental enrichment where possible, familiar smells and objects from home, owner visits where compatible with treatment, and attentive nursing care that provides positive social contact. Compassion fatigue among veterinary ICU staff, who experience high rates of animal suffering and death, is a staff welfare issue with direct implications for patient welfare: well-supported staff provide better care.