Empowering Support for Family Members of Patients With Traumatic Brain Injury During the Acute Care: Insights From Family Members and Nurses.
Julia Lindlöf, Hannele Turunen, Kirsi Coco and 3 others
PMID 39235262WHAT IT FOUND
Family members and nurses agreed acute brain injury care should give timely clear information, hope, participation and support services.
They disagreed about delivery: families wanted nurses to guide and stay; nurses cited time, roles and systems.
Key findings
01Family members and nurses identified four areas of empowering support: information and guidance, participation and decision-making, collaborative nursing and interprofessional support, and internal and external hospital support.
02Family members wanted clearer written and repeated information, nurses to stay after doctor meetings, guidance on invisible symptoms and help telling children; nurses saw detailed diagnosis as physicians' work and avoided promises because recovery is uncertain.
03Both groups valued family participation and interprofessional care meetings, but nurses reported time, space, unclear roles and variable referral to support services, while family members wanted automatic guidance and a single contact.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only seven family members and eleven nurses took part, all female, so it does not represent men, children or other family roles. Family members were recruited through the Finnish Brain Injury Association and online channels, and their relative's injury had happened 2 to 10 years earlier, so their accounts are retrospective and may miss families with less online access. Nurses came from four hospitals with specialised acute TBI care and more than five years' experience, so findings may not transfer to other settings or less experienced staff. The study reports perceptions and themes, not patient outcomes or the effect of a family-centred intervention. Patients with TBI were not interviewed, and organisational resources and policies were not measured directly.
Declared interests
The study was funded by Itä-Suomen Yliopisto and the Finnish Cultural Foundation, and the authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that these practices improve family coping or patient outcomes. The study reports perceptions and themes from 18 participants, not a tested intervention or outcome.