Empowering the "Cheerers": Role of Surgical Intensive Care Unit Nurses in Enhancing Family Resilience

Abstract

Background Supporting family resilience, the ability of families to rebound from stressful events, is a goal of family nursing. Critical care nurses act as liaisons between patients' families and other clinicians and thus are uniquely situated to promote family resilience. Objective To explore how nurses perceive the experiences of long-stay surgical intensive care unit patients and their families in order to gain insights on how nurses could cultivate family resilience. Methods A qualitative study including semistructured interviews (n = 13) and 4 focus groups (n = 17) with nurses in 3 surgical intensive care units in a large teaching hospital. Results Three themes were identified: expectations, support, and communication. Nurses noted that clinicians' and families' unrealistic expectations regarding the patient's recovery can foster false hope. Nurses recognized families as "cheerers" who provide support by being involved in patient care and observed how extensive family involvement can be beneficial to patients but overwhelming for families. Nurses noted that communication among providers, families, and patients is the cornerstone of creating meaningful relationships. Nurses stated that with many teams involved, discrepancies in information can occur and often confuse and disturb patients' families. Thus, nurses identified ways to enhance family resilience through routine and consistent communication.Conclusions Nurses note unique stresses faced by families of patients in surgical intensive care units. Using the family resilience model, nurses can identify and enhance key family resilience factors.

Exploring family needs in neonatal and pediatric intensive care units at King Khaled Hospital- Jeddah

“…This is in line with a recent study by Ellis et.al [23], who observed that false hope is fostered with unrealistic expectations of both the clinicians and the families; it was stated by the nurses that discrepancies in information can both confuse and disturb the family members and impact family resilience in a negative manner. Table 5 shows that the highest mean of perception of the FN about honest response in families (3.94 ± 0.24) exceed than the doctors (3.62 ± 0.49) and nurses (3.65 ± 0.65) perception.…”

The significance of hope as experienced by the next of kin to critically ill patients in the intensive care unit

“…Many of the family members in this study said that the information they received in the first days was reliable, that they felt they were approached in a professional way, and that they had a good dialogue with the nurses and doctors in the unit (11,43). In line with Ellis and Gergen (48), expectation is a common theme regarding family resilience. And further, expectations are closely related to hope and hoping.…”

Estratégias de comunicação com a família da pessoa em situação crítica: revisão integrativa

“…Os resultados demostram a importância do enfermeiro intervir na comunicação com a família quer a nível verbal, quer a nível não verbal. Ao nível da comunicação verbal a transmissão de informação assume considerável destaque (Adams et al, 2015;Almaze & De Beer, 2017;Barndt, 2018;Blackburn et al, 2019;Briggs, 2017;Caswell et al, 2015;Ellis et al, 2016;Ganz, Yihye & Beckman, 2019;Hoffmann & Olsen, 2018;Hollman Frisman et al, 2017;Kalocsai et al, 2018;Loghmani et al, 2014;Lukmanulhakim et al, 2016;Mendonça Rezende et al, 2014;Pecanac & King, 2019;Warrilow et al, 2015), sendo um aspeto veiculado por todos os autores principalmente para clarificar questões sensíveis (ressuscitação cardiopulmonar, fim de vida, doação de órgãos e suspensão de medidas terapêutica), mas também como parte de um acolhimento formal à família (Barndt, 2018;Blackburn et al, 2019;Briggs, 2017;Hoffmann & Olsen, 2018;Kalocsai et al, 2018;Lukmanulhakim et al, 2016), face às especificidades do contexto e à complexidade da situação crítica, onde se explica o funcionamento do serviço e as formas de contato com a equipa de saúde responsável pelo ente querido. Apenas dois destes autores evidenciam a importância do enfermeiro se apresentar profissionalmente, enquanto membro de referência na equipa, neste momento de acolhimento (Barndt, 2018;Lukmanulhakim et al, 2016).…”