• Background Within the challenging healthcare environment are nurses, patients, and patients’ families. Families want proximity to their loved ones, but the benefits of such proximity depend on patients’ conditions and family-patient dynamics.• Objectives To describe patients’ preferences for family visiting in an intensive care unit and a complex care medical unit.• Methods Sixty-two patients participated in a structured interview that assessed patients’ preferences for visiting, stressors and benefits of visiting, and patients’ perceived satisfaction with hospital guidelines for visiting.• Results Patients in both units rated visiting as a nonstressful experience because visitors offered moderate levels of reassurance, comfort, and calming. Patients in the intensive care unit worried more about their families than did patients in the complex care medical unit but valued the fact that visitors could interpret information for the patients while providing information to assist the nurse in understanding the patients. Patients in the intensive care unit were more satisfied with visiting practices than were patients in the complex care medical unit, although both groups preferred visits of 35 to 55 minutes, 3 to 4 times a day, and with usually no more than 3 visitors.• Conclusions These data provide the input of patients in the ongoing discussion of visiting practices in both intensive care units and complex care medical units. Patients were very satisfied with a visiting guideline that is flexible enough to meet their needs and those of their family members.

A869respectivamente. Al analizar por dimensiones, la asociada a dolor fue modificada significativamente entre los grupos. Las diferencias por sexo mostraron que los hombres presentan una desutilidad significativamente mayor que las mujeres con la preparación con Polietilenglicol con electrolitos de 5,1%. La calidad de la preparación fue similar y adecuada para las tres preparaciones analizadas. ConClusions: Los pacientes que son sometidos a preparación intestinal ven afectados su calidad de vida con cualquiera de los tres tipos de preparaciones, sin embargo, la preparación con fosfatos oral modificado con 12 horas de ayuno es la que menos afecta la calidad de vida con efectividad similar a las otros esquemas de preparación.

The purpose of this study is to compare differences in patient preferences for visitors during hospitalization for a cardiovascular event specifically comparing cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) patients to those on cardiac step down units (SDU). A convenience sample 63 subjects from the CICU, mean age of 61.2 +/- 14.4 years, 21 males and 41 females, were compared with 61 subjects, mean age of 67.9 +/- 14.4 years, 15 females and 46 males, on the "Patient's Perception of Visits in the Hospital" questionnaire. The CICU patient perceived higher value for visiting specifically because visitors assisted with interpretation of information (P<.02), were calming (P<.05), providing information about them to staff (P<.01), helped with care (P<.000), and reinforced treatments (P<.004). There were no differences in total stressor score between CICU and SDU patients, though the CICU patient worried more about their visitors traveling (P<.025). The SDU patient perceived that visitors were disruptive to rest (P<.001) and that visitors intensified their pain (P<.008). The majority of patients preferred unlimited visiting hours, with 3 visitors at a time, and some limits on children. Text data identified unlimited visiting for close family members, the benefit of support from visitors, and the stress of lengthy visits. These data provide voice to cardiovascular patient's perception of visitors.

(WPW) syndrome (n = 97), mean age 48 years, 48% males were included in the study. Results: There were no significant difference in the healthstate utility score calculated from the five dimensions in EuroQol-5D between the patients with HF 0.73 (0.62-0.85) median, (inter quartile range), and patients with PSVT 0.76 (0.72-0.85) (P = 0.17). However, there were significant differences in two of the dimensions, mobility (P =0.001) and usual activities (P = 0.001) with HF patients having more problems with walking around and performing daily activities. 16% of the HF patients and 30% of the PSVT patients were afraid of dying (P = 0.001). Fear of death and anxiety/depression were significantly correlated in patients with HF (r = 0.40, P = 0.001). No other correlation to fear of death was found among dimensions of EuroQol-5D, utility scores and demographic variables in patients with HF. Fear of death did not correlate with any dimension of EuroQol-5D, the utility score or demographic variables in the patients with PSVT. The PSVT group consisted of another type of cardiac patients that were younger and had a more equal distribution of gender than the patients with HF. It was therefore interesting to compare these two groups. It would have been interesting to also compare with a sample of healthy elderly individuals. Conclusion: There were no significant difference in the perceived health-state between the patients with HF and patients with PSVT. Despite the fact that the patients with PSVT were younger and had a much better prognosis of their cardiac disease they had a significantly higher fear of death than patient with HF. Higher levels of depression and anxiety were correlated to a fear of death in HF, but not in PSVT patients.