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Table 2 The family experience and suggestions for improvement

From: Improving the intensive care experience from the perspectives of different stakeholders

Discovering a “new world”

Open/flexible visiting policies

Coping with medical jargon

Use family leaflets and digital materials

Difficulties in understanding information (inadequate timing, language barriers, contradictory information)

Improve communication skills

Reporting impersonal information

 Adapt words, use reformulation (tell-ask-tell), and when necessary, an interpreter

Psychological distress at any time during the ICU stay:

 Allow more time for information

 Acute stress

 Develop empathetic communication, verbal and nonverbal communication

 Anxiety

Encourage

 Depression

 Personalization

 Peritraumatic dissociation

 Agency

Psychological distress in the months that follow ICU discharge:

 Togetherness

 Anxiety

 Sense-making

 Depression

Regular interprofessional family meetings, including the nurse

 PTSD

Family End of Life conference (VALUE acronym)

 Complicated grief

Nurse communication facilitator

Other difficulties

Physician and nurse support strategy before, during and after the patient’s death

 Sleep disorders and sleepiness

Available psychologist

 Managing family and work life

Available social worker

 Financial stress

 

 Transfer anxiety