Poster Presentation
Friday, 21 July 2006
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Friday, 21 July 2006
3:00 PM - 3:30 PM
End-of-Life Communication in Intensive Care Units in Taiwan
Hsiu-Fang Hsieh, Feng-Ping Lee, and Jing-Jy Wang, PhD, RN. Department of Nursing, Fooyin University, Kaohsiung, Sao Tome
| Learning Objective #1: describe the content and process of end-of-life communication in intensive care units. |
| Learning Objective #2: identify the influence of culture on end-of-life communication in intensive care units. |
Background. Death, and the decision-making that accompanies modern death, is one of the most intense experiences that humans encounter. End-of-life communication between patients, families, and clinicians not only is the best way to make certain patients receive the care they want in order to prevent unnecessary and prolong dying, but also has been regarded as one of the most important quality indicators of end-of-life care in the ICU.
Objective. The study used an exploratory-descriptive design to describe the content and process of end-of-life communication in intensive care units via semi-structure interview. The analysis of interview data will utilize a qualitative content analysis. Also, the relationships between end-of-life communication and demographic characteristics are explored.
Methods. One-on-one interview was conducted with families of patients who died under the care of ICU and nurses who were working in ICU in Taiwan. A directed approach to content analysis was used to analyze interview data after verbatim transcription by three content experts. Techniques are used to establish trustworthiness of the analysis.
Results. The length of interview ranged from 30 minutes to more than two hours. One of the major challenges nurses faced in providing care to patients at the end of life (EOL) in the intensive care settings is to communicate with patients, their families, physicians, and other healthcare providers. Nurses played diverse but passive roles in EOL communication. They are usually mediators who identify related decision-making problems and convey the message to physicians. The center of their EOL care focuses on physical needs of dying patients and cultural needs of their families.
Conclusions. This study addresses an essential focus where there is limited research available for evidence-based practice. The result of this study produces information about end-of-life communication to contribute to the state of science around end-of-life communication and decision-making in intensive care units.
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