ArticleJournal of critical care2020
Developing the family support tool: An interactive, web-based tool to help families navigate the complexities of surrogate decision making in ICUs.
Article in Journal of critical care, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Sociotechnical Intervention for Improved Delivery of Preventive Cardiovascular Care to Rural Communities: Participatory Design Approach.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Trial
- A Pilot Randomized Trial of an Interactive Web-based Tool to Support Surrogate Decision Makers in the Intensive Care Unit.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2021Trial
- Digital Tools for Information, Communication, Support, and Family Engagement in Adult Intensive Care Units: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Protocol for a randomized trial of a scalable, interactive tool to support surrogate decision-makers of critically ill patients.Contemporary clinical trials · 2026Article
- User-centred prototyping solutions to solve adult critical care issues: a scoping review.BMJ health & care informatics · 2026Article
- Surrogate Wars: The "Best Interest Values" Hierarchy & End-of-Life Conflicts with Surrogate Decision-Makers.HEC forum : an interdisciplinary journal on hospitals' ethical and legal issues · 2025Article
- Decision Aids in the ICU: a scoping review.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Factors Affecting Psychological Distress in Family Caregivers of Critically Ill Patients: A Qualitative Study.American journal of critical care : an official publication, American Association of Critical-Care Nurses · 2023Article
- Video tools in pediatric goals of care communication: A systematic review.PEC innovation · 2022Review
- Associations Between Family Member Involvement and Outcomes of Patients Admitted to the Intensive Care Unit: Retrospective Cohort Study.JMIR medical informatics · 2022Article
- Applying Human-Centered Design to Refinement of the Jumpstart Guide, a Clinician- and Patient-Facing Goals-of-Care Discussion Priming Tool.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2021Article
- COLAEVA: Visual Analytics and Data Mining Web-Based Tool for Virtual Coaching of Older Adult Populations.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionAlthough family members of incapacitated, critically ill patients often struggle in the role of surrogate decision maker, there are no low-cost, easily-scaled interventions to address this problem. AIM OF THE STUDY: To develop and pilot-test the Family Support Tool, an interactive, web-based tool to help individuals navigate the complexities of surrogate decision making in ICUs. MATERIAL AND
methodsWe used a mixed methods, user-centered process to create the Family Support Tool, including: 1) creation of a preliminary design by an expert panel; 2) engagement of a key stakeholder panel to iteratively refine the preliminary design; 3) user testing of a low-fidelity prototype of the tool by 6 former ICU surrogates; 4) creation of a web-based prototype; and 5) user testing of the web-based prototype with 14 surrogates and ICU physicians, including semi-structured interviews and quantitative measurement of usability, acceptability, and perceived effectiveness.
resultsThe initial design contained a collection of videos and exercises designed to help individuals understand the surrogate's role and think through the patient's values and preferences. Based on family stakeholders' feedback about the emotional overwhelm they experience early in an ICU stay, we redesigned the tool to be viewed in sections, with the first section focused on decreasing surrogates' emotional distress, and later sections focused on helping surrogates prepare for family meetings. Surrogates actively making decisions in the ICU judged the final tool to be highly usable (mean summary score 83.5, correlating to 95th percentile when normalized to devices of its type), acceptable (mean 4.2 +/- 0.5 out of 5), and effective (mean 4.3 +/- 0.6 out of 5). All surrogates reported the tool helped them consider goals of care and all indicated they would recommend the tool to a friend.
conclusionsWe successfully developed a web-based tool to help individuals navigate the complexities of surrogate decision making in ICUs that has high potential for scalability. Surrogates judged the tool to be usable, acceptable, and effective. These data support proceeding to test the tool in a pilot randomized clinical trial.
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