ArticleBMC nursing2023
In their absence; intensive care nurses' experiences of communicating and supporting relatives from a distance.
Article in BMC nursing, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of digital communication tools on patients, family members and health care professionals in adult ICUs: a mixed-methods systematic review.Critical care (London, England) · 2026Pooled it
- Beyond the ICU: family resilience and emotional turmoil after intensive care - a qualitative study.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2026Article
- Satisfaction With Digital Communication Among Healthcare Providers and Families in Intensive Care Units: A Cross-Sectional Study.Nursing in critical care · 2026Article
- Intensive care nurses' experiences of teamwork during the covid-19 pandemic. a qualitative study.BMC nursing · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundHaving a critically ill family member in the intensive care unit (ICU) is a challenging situation and ICU nurses play an important part in supporting relatives to make sense of the situation. Strict visiting policies inhibited the family's presence in ICUs during 2020-22, and the communication between nurses and families changed drastically. Information and support are at the core of the ICU nurses' profession, and the pandemic backdrop created a split between what intensive care nurses have a professional responsibility to perform and which actions were possible. To get a fuller picture, the aim of this study was: To describe intensive care nurses' experiences of communicating and supporting relatives from a distance while working during visiting restrictions.
methodA qualitative descriptive design using individual and semi-structured interviews with 16 ICU nurses. The interviews were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. This study followed the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ).
resultsDue to the visiting restriction during the COVID-19 pandemic, ICU nurses found themselves in a situation where proximity and time to develop an interpersonal connection with relatives disappeared overnight. The nurses' experiences of communicating with and supporting families is described in three themes: "Finding ways to create order out of chaos"; "Guiding the relatives to a fuller picture of the situation"; and "Feeling insufficient in their support".
conclusionVisiting restrictions in the ICU meant that ICU nurses missed vital information about their patients as a person, which might have had a negative effect on personalizing and centring the patient care. But using a combination of digital and audio tools helped nurses to guide the relatives to a clearer picture of the situation as a whole. The support that nurses were able to provide to relatives was often insufficient due to the visiting restriction and as a consequence, they experienced physical and psychological stress.
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Registered trials
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