Nurses and Families' attitudes towards family presence during, invasive procedures

Gelbart, O., Itzhaki, M., Shichor, T., Harpaz, I., Shalish, Y., & Raanan, O. (2012). Nurses and Families' attitudes towards family presence during, invasive procedures and resuscitation. (Poster) International Nursing Conference "Nursing: Caring to Know, Knowing to Care", Jerusalem, Israel.

Background: An increasing number of emergency departments in the US and Europe allow presence of family members during invasive procedures and resuscitation, however this is a highly controversial topic. In Israel the decision as to whether families can be present is based on health care providers' attitudes and not on guidelines established by the Ministry of Health.

Aim: To examine nurses' and family members' attitudes towards family presence during invasive procedures and resuscitation.

Methods: Self-reported questionnaires from 281 family members and 385  hospital nurses.

Results: Both nurses and families had more positive attitudes towards presence during invasive procedures as compared to resuscitation (p< 0.001 t = 10.874, p< 0.01 t = 6.255 respectively).  Nurses with prior experience in resuscitation had more positive attitudes than nurses without experience (p< 0.001 t = 4.305).  Nurses' seniority did not influence attitudes towards family presence during invasive procedures or resuscitation. 

Conclusions: Israel Nurses tend to have negative attitudes towards family presence during invasive procedures and resuscitation. This negative approach may reflect the absence of guidelines regarding this issue in Israeli policy.