Supporting patients' and families' religious and spiritual needs in ICU – can we do more?

ICU PATIENT EXPERIENCE For both families and patients, admission to the hospital environment can be frightening. This sense of fear is magnified in the intensive care unit (ICU) by the severe conditions and an intensive technological environment. While nurses grow accustomed to this, we know from first-hand experience that patients and families experience the ICU as a daunting and dehumanizing environment. In the ICU, patients’ identities change as they lose emotional intimacy (Plakas et al., 2009). ICU is also the place where many, perhaps for the first time, face their own mortality. Death, pain and suffering, loss and isolation permeate the environment of an ICU. Fear, terror and a heightened sense of vulnerability are common for those who find themselves in the ICU. This experience often affects the remainder of their lives. The sense of loneliness, abandonment, disempowerment and total dependency that grips ICU patients should never be underestimated. Having an intensive care survivor on our team makes us very much aware of the life-changing experience that comes from being so close to death and surrounded by death. It AQ1 can be a lonely and desolate place to be; words uttered about the patient’s condition around the patient but never spoken to directly; a reluctance to speak of the unspeakable possibility of death. While modern approaches to care espouse a holistic approach, there is a tendency within the ICU environment to focus primarily on illness, treatment and recovery. The author who survived the ICU felt more like a number than a person – an intensely dehumanizing experience. Recognizing potential for this dehumanizing, in this paper we seek to speak for the many voiceless patients and their families who have spent time in an ICU. We will also make a case for the importance of religious and spiritual support for those who must endure the ICU journey.