Learning Objective #1: Describe the family experience when an adult family member is hospitalized with a critical illness

Learning Objective #2: Identify family level approaches that decrease the family's suffering and help the family endure the struggle of having an adult member hospitalized with critical illness

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Investigation at the family level to describe the family experience when an adult family member is hospitalized with a critical illness and illuminate the phenomenon of family nursing in this experience has been lacking. The main purpose of this study was to understand and interpret the phenomenon of the family experience of having an adult family member hospitalized with a critical illness. A framework of family systems theory and phenomenology guided this family research study. Van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenology methodology was used to explore the family experience. Interview transcripts and field note recordings of semi-structured interviews with eleven families (41 participant family members with a critically ill adult member) were the data used. Families, including adults and children, in various family life cycle stages participated in family interviews. Findings revealed that the family's way of being in the world was shaped by the meanings of the illness experience for the family and their meaning of family in the context of critical illness. One constitutive pattern, Being Family, with several themes, Suffering the Struggle Together and Separately, Recognizing Vulnerability, Being on Guard, Connecting Amidst the Turmoil, Sensing Discomfort, and Enduring Unrelenting Uncertainty was revealed. Families are exceedingly strong and it is being family and all that being family means to them that makes them able to endure the extreme emotional upheaval and suffering of the experience. The phenomenon of Being Family revealed the profound power that nurses have to help families bear this experience. Family caring, based on understanding of the family experience, is enhanced through the presence of a nurse that acknowledges the significance of the nurse-family relationships and the family experience. This understanding supports family level approaches that decrease the family's suffering and struggle and act on a commitment to be with and for the family during critical illness.