Nurses’ experiences of providing family-centred care to dying adult patients in Intensive Care Units: A Literature Review
Klepinine, Sonia (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025122838947
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025122838947
Tiivistelmä
Family-centred care for dying patients in the ICU is a crucial part of end-of-life care. The purpose of this thesis was to describe nurses’ experiences of providing family-centred care to dying adult patients in intensive care units. The aim was to provide evidence-based information that can be used to develop family-centred care in ICUs in the future. A descriptive literature review was conducted using inductive content analysis. Sixteen articles from PubMed and Ebscohost were selected for analysis. The analysis revealed that nurses support families in decision-making and planning, recognise both the benefits and challenges of effective communication, and view emotional support as a key aspect of family-centred care.
Observing and facilitating communication and decision-making among families, as well as providing emotional support, demonstrates that nurses are well placed to act as facilitators between families, patients, and ICU staff. This role could be further developed and formalised in future practice. A lack of hands-on experience among younger nurses, alongside inadequate or ambiguous communication, were identified as barriers to quality family-centred care. These findings suggest that adequate training and mentoring are needed to develop nurses’ competencies. Future studies focusing on the gaps between training and real-life practice, as well as on the development of the nurse-facilitator role, could benefit the advancement of family-centred ICU end-of-life care.
Observing and facilitating communication and decision-making among families, as well as providing emotional support, demonstrates that nurses are well placed to act as facilitators between families, patients, and ICU staff. This role could be further developed and formalised in future practice. A lack of hands-on experience among younger nurses, alongside inadequate or ambiguous communication, were identified as barriers to quality family-centred care. These findings suggest that adequate training and mentoring are needed to develop nurses’ competencies. Future studies focusing on the gaps between training and real-life practice, as well as on the development of the nurse-facilitator role, could benefit the advancement of family-centred ICU end-of-life care.