Journal of advanced nursing
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Comparative Study
Care of the critically ill patient: the impact of stress on the use of touch in intensive therapy units.
The literature suggests that stress is a major factor for nurses personally 'disengaging' from patients who are critically ill. This research aimed to investigate if nurses in a general intensive therapy unit (ITU) disengage from their patients by using touches that are mainly task orientated, rather than caring/social touches. This study sought to establish whether there was a relationship between categories of touch deployed by nurses and the individual characteristics of the nurses. ⋯ However, there was a significant relationship between caring/social touch and a nurse's length of service (rs = -0.54, P < 0.01). The interview data discovered that the stressors were related to the organizational pressures of the environment in which care was delivered, rather than the involvement of caring for critically ill patients. This apparent contradiction of the literature contributes a further dimension in considering the impact of management changes and organizational structures upon nurses' stress, which has further implications for the delivery of care in ITUs.