Barriers to regaining control within a constructivist grounded theory of family resilience in ICU: Living with uncertainty

Abstract

The findings reveal in-depth understanding of families' uncertainty in intensive care. It suggests that intensive care unit staff need to focus clinical interventions on reducing factors that heighten their uncertainty, while optimising strategies that help alleviate it. Families are facilitated to move beyond feelings of helplessness and loss of control, and cope better with their situation.

Searching for meaning: A grounded theory of family resilience in adult ICU

“…In some instances, more than one family member related to the same patient agreed to participate, although they were all interviewed individually. Participant demographics including their age, gender and their relationship to the patient have been published elsewhere (Wong et al., 2017a).…”

“…Memos that recorded the research activity provide the necessary documentation for an audit trail. Member checking, during which the researchers returned to participants and asked them to check and comment on the transcripts with the aim of validating the interviews, strengthened the study's credibility (Wong et al., 2017a,b). Peer review among the authors was also performed to offer a mechanism for validating the research findings.…”

“…This paper describes the findings of the major category and facilitator of regaining control: Searching for meaning . Other major categories from this study have been published elsewhere (Wong et al, ; Wong, Liamputtong, Koch, & Rawson, 2017a).…”

Barriers to families' regaining control in ICU: Disconnectedness

“…The ages of the participants ranged from 23 to 70 years. The participant recruitment strategy, including use of third‐party recruitment, the patients' conditions and their length of stay in ICU at the time of interviews, has been published elsewhere (Wong, , Wong et al ).…”

“…Approval to conduct the study was obtained from the University Human Ethics Committee, Institutional Ethics Committee and a wide range of departmental heads across the organizational hierarchy. Further ethical considerations, including the use of pseudonyms to maintain participant anonymity and contingencies for managing participants who may have become upset, have also been detailed in a previous publication (Liamputtong, , Wong et al ).…”