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Intensive Care Medicine
Published in: Intensive Care Medicine 6/2007

01-06-2007 | Brief Report

Beliefs and attitudes of intensive care nurses toward visits and open visiting policy

Authors: Dana Berti, Patrick Ferdinande, Philip Moons

Published in: Intensive Care Medicine | Issue 6/2007

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Abstract

Objective

To describe the beliefs and attitudes of intensive care unit (ICU) nurses toward visiting, visiting hours, and open visiting policies in critical care settings.

Design

A descriptive, cross-sectional, multicenter survey.

Setting

Seventeen hospitals in Flanders (Dutch-speaking Belgium), including 30 ICUs. Sixteen mixed adult medical/surgical ICUs, three medical ICUs, five surgical ICUs, three coronary care units, two post-cardiac surgery ICUs, and one burn unit.

Participants

A total of 531 intensive care nurses.

Measurements and results

We devised a questionnaire comprising 20 items assessing beliefs and 14 items assessing attitudes. Nurses indicated their level of agreement for each statement on a five-point rating scale. Nurses believed that open visiting hampers planning of adequate nursing care (75.2%), interferes with direct nursing care (73.8%), and causes nurses to spend more time in providing information to the patients' families (82.3%). The presumed effects of visits on the patients and families were contradictory. Most nurses (75.3%) did not want to liberalize the visiting policy of their unit.

Conclusions

ICU nurses have rather skeptical beliefs and attitudes toward visiting and open visiting policy. This suggests that the culture at Flemish ICUs is not ready for a drastic liberalization of the visiting policy.
Appendix
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Metadata
Title
Beliefs and attitudes of intensive care nurses toward visits and open visiting policy
Authors
Dana Berti
Patrick Ferdinande
Philip Moons
Publication date
01-06-2007
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Published in
Intensive Care Medicine / Issue 6/2007
Print ISSN: 0342-4642
Electronic ISSN: 1432-1238
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00134-007-0599-x

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