Meeting the needs of family members of ICU patients.

Health care professionals have begun to view family members as an integral part of the healing process and the well-being of patients in the intensive care unit. The needs of family members may be varied, and nurses must become attuned to the family members' needs and acquire skills to direct interventions toward identifying and meeting those needs. The aim of the research study was to explore and identify the perceptions of family members' needs and to ascertain if those needs were perceived as met or unmet by the family members of patients housed in the intensive care units. The hypothesis proposed that a gap exists between identified needs of family members visiting intensive care patients and their perceptions of needs as being met or unmet. Data analysis included quantitative and qualitative methods.