Jordanian Patients' Family Members Need Perceptions in the Critical Care Settings: Nurses' Perspectives versus Family Members' Perspectives in the Context of Health Informatics

Abstract

Background: An unexpected hospitalization in any of the Critical Care Units (CCUs) is a stressful condition, not only for patients but also for other family members. Research in this field in Jordan is not available. The main objective of this study was to identify the most important needs as perceived by these family members in the light of this stressful event and compare them with the nurses' perceptions of the importance of these needs and also to determine the perception of the needs' importance with the sociodemographic characteristics of both family members and caring nurses.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in the period between February and August 2020 among adult family members of patients admitted to the CCUs in hospitals of Jordan from all sectors (public, private, and teaching). The "Critical Care Family Needs Inventory (CCFNI)" questionnaire was administered to 82 family members and 99 CCU nurses to determine the importance of the needs on the inventory. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results: The most important need identified by the family members was relevant to the need for proximity (3.64 ± 0.45), followed by information (3.57 ± 0.58), assurance (3.44 ± 0.43), support (3.31 ± 0.62), and comfort (3.21 ± 0.56). Nurses identified the needs for assurance as the highest, followed by information, comfort, and support, whereas proximity was the least need perceived as very important. The top 10 important needs for both family members and nurses were identified. Family members and nurses were only common in 2 of the need statements on the scale. There was no significant association between the sociodemographic characteristics of the sample and the perception of the needs' importance (p=0.05).

Conclusion: This study has shown that nurses and family members of patients admitted to CCUs have different perspectives relevant to needs' importance. This should warn nurses to set the needs viewed by family members as a priority. Implications. In the CCU settings, in the context of advancing health informatics, families of patients in the ICUs have different needs other than those viewed by nurses. Their needs must be identified and considered.