Nursing & health sciences
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Nursing & health sciences · Sep 2003
Understanding uncertainty and minimizing families' anxiety at the time of transfer from intensive care.
When general ward registered nurses (RN) receive patients from an intensive care unit (ICU) they report that much of their time in the initial phases revolves around meeting family needs (Farvis, 2002). Families experience anxiety when leaving the security of the close monitoring seen in ICU (Leith, 1999) and their anxiety reduces their ability to play a key role in the patient's recovery (McShane, 1991; Leske, 1992) as it can impair their decision-making (Cagan, 1988; Halm et al., 1993). By reducing a family's anxiety, they may be more able to cope with the necessary transition to a general ward and support the patient's recovery. ⋯ Seven out of the top 10 needs of ICU families are information needs, highlighting the importance of communication regarding progress and future plans. Nurses require an increased awareness that transfer anxiety exists for families and to be knowledgeable about ways to reduce its occurrence. Research is required to evaluate the efficacy of interventions to reduce anxiety for families and examine the level of uncertainty in illness in this cohort.