The experience of the nurse caring for families of patients at the end of life in the intensive care unit

Abstract

The patient who enters at the intensive care unit (ICU) usually does because of health conditions that are sometimes irreversible and lead to death, and the care at the end of life becomes the main factor of this situation; therefore, the aim of this article was to understand the meaning of the experience of giving care to families at the end of life in an ICU. For this reason, a qualitative, hermeneutic phenomenological research was carried out. For the data collection, a semi-structured interview was conducted to 18 participants, and the results were returned to each of the participants in order to validate each of the categories and interpretations. Among these results, two main categories were identified: emotional response of the nurse to the family and nursing care to the family of patients at the end of life. It was concluded that the nurses working at the ICU are facing aspects related to the end of life that generates emotional and psychological burden; additionally, they do not have specific training in this subject, especially in relation to the care of the families in this situation, for which they provide this care based on empiricism.