Prioritizing information topics for relatives of critically ill patients : Cross-sectional survey among intensive care unit relatives and professionals.

Magdalena Hoffmann,Anna K Holl,Karin Amrein,Thomas R Pieber,Philipp Eller,Harald Burgsteiner

doi:10.1007/s00508-018-1377-1

Abstract

SummaryA patient’s admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) has a significant impact on family members and other relatives. In order for them to be able to cope with such a stressful situation, the availability of appropriate understandable and accessible information is crucial. The information asymmetry between relatives and medical professionals may adversely affect satisfaction of relatives and their risk of subsequent anxiety, depression and stress symptoms. The aim of this study was therefore to understand which topics are most important to the relatives of ICU patients and to quantify the perceptions of medical professionals regarding the information needs of relatives. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2015. The survey had 42 questions, such as ‘diagnosis’, ‘treatment’, ‘comfort’, ‘family’ and ‘end of life’. In total, the survey was handed out to four different groups. A total of 336 persons answered the survey (26 relatives, 28 ICU physicians, 202 ICU nurses and 80 ICU medical professionals in a closed Facebook© group [Facebook, Menlo Park, California, USA]). Relatives ranked the five most important topics as follows: ‘recent events (crisis)’, ‘my participation’, ‘contamination in hospital’, ‘physical pain’, and ‘probability’. Several significant differences (p<0.001) were detected, for example for the topics fever, medication, recent events (crisis), appointments, relapse, and investigations. Even the topic with the lowest ranking (religion) had a score of 3.15 (min. 1.00, max. 5.00) among relatives. The ICU professionals appear to have divergent opinions regarding the most important topics for ICU relatives as compared to relatives themselves.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00508-018-1377-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

Relatives in intensive care units (ICU) are important partners in the decision-making underlying the treatment of critically ill patients
The survey was answered by 26 relatives, 28 physicians 202 nurses and 80 ICU professionals at the Facebook© group
The five most important topics were ‘recent events’ (e. g. acute deterioration of physical indicators, such as fever or blood pressure), ‘my participation’ (e. g. what can I do to help), ‘contamination in the hospital’ (e. g. what is important for me to know about hand hygiene or isolation), ‘physical pain’ (e. g. does the patient have pain and what will be done to prevent/treat pain) and ‘what happens ’ (e. g. discharge from ICU)

Summary

Introduction

Relatives in intensive care units (ICU) are important partners in the decision-making underlying the treatment of critically ill patients They can be a significant resource by providing information, and in the care and rehabilitation of patients [1, 2], but the critical illness of a close relative negatively affects them too [3]. The health literacy of the relatives is undoubtedly an important co-factor in the communication process [5, 6], as 50% of relatives fail to understand healthcare staff communication [7] This could have an impact on relatives as well as on the rehabilitation of the patients [8] and may lead to symptoms of anxiety, stress, depression, and sleep problems [4, 9,10,11,12]. It is important to provide appropriate and sufficient information to families of ICU patients [16]

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