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Critically ill patients' experiences of nursing care in the intensive care unit
Author(s) -
Kisorio Leah C,
Langley Gayle C
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
nursing in critical care
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.689
H-Index - 43
eISSN - 1478-5153
pISSN - 1362-1017
DOI - 10.1111/nicc.12409
Subject(s) - nursing , intensive care unit , intensive care , medicine , psychological intervention , critical care nursing , qualitative research , nursing care , health care , intensive care medicine , social science , sociology , economics , economic growth
Background Understanding critically ill patients' experiences of nursing care is an important aspect that can improve quality of care in the intensive care unit. Aim To elicit critically ill patients' experiences of nursing care in the adult intensive care units. Design A qualitative descriptive design was utilized. Methods Sixteen patients who had a predicted mortality risk of above 50% within the first 24 h of admission to the intensive care unit and had been discharged to the ward were purposively selected. The study was conducted at three academic affiliated, tertiary/quaternary specialist hospitals in South Africa. Individual semi‐structured interviews were conducted with the selected participants until a point of data saturation was reached. Data were analysed using a conventional content analysis technique (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). Lincoln and Guba's criteria for ensuring the trustworthiness of qualitative research were applied. Findings Four major themes emerged: ‘being in someone's shoes', ‘communication’, ‘presence’ and ‘religion and spirituality’. Conclusions Even though some participants' responses reflected ‘good’ nursing care, the majority of the participants had negative experiences in relation to the nursing care they received while admitted in the selected intensive care units. Relevance to clinical practice This study demonstrates critically ill patients' voices and preferences of intensive nursing care and describes some issues that require not only nurses' but also managerial improvements and interventions in order to ensure quality care and, eventually, patients' satisfaction with intensive nursing care.