Critical care nurses' role with families: a descriptive study.

The purpose of this descriptive study was to explore the topic of families of critically ill patients from the critical care nurse's perspective. Two hundred twenty-six critical care nurses from one Midwest and three New England hospitals participated in the study. Critical care nurses' responses to questions about family visiting demonstrated variation in their interpretation and enforcement of visiting policies within units and among hospitals. There was overall consensus that family members should play a supportive, although nonparticipative role in the provision of care of their sick family member. More than 75% of the critical care nurses became involved with families in need of emotional support although more than one third of the respondents did not believe they had the requisite knowledge to meet families' psychosocial needs. Among the factors that most influenced critical care nurses' involvement with families were situations relating to the patient's actual or impending death and the nurses' subjective feelings (likes or dislikes) for the patient and family.