Managing Visitors During the Hospital Stay: The Experience of Family Caregivers of Patients With Traumatic Brain Injury.
Tolu O Oyesanya, Barbara Bowers
PMID 28795896WHAT IT FOUND
Family caregivers of hospitalized adults with moderate-to-severe TBI described heavy effort to manage visitors for patient safety and their own energy.
They often felt unsupported by staff, but staff collaboration was described as successful in limiting unwelcome visitors.
Key findings
01Caregivers managed visitors to protect patient physical and emotional safety and conserve their own energy.
02Caregivers classified visitors as welcome or unwelcome and changed visitor access as recovery progressed.
03Only four caregivers reported collaborating with staff to manage unwelcome visitors; three of those four had success.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The sample was small and came from three inpatient rehabilitation facilities. All family caregivers were white, so the findings may not represent diverse families. The sample included many caregivers who had difficulty managing visitors, so it may miss families who managed visitors easily. The study did not interview nurses or other staff, so staff perspectives were not directly collected. The study did not test whether staff-assisted visitor management improves patient safety or caregiver wellbeing. The cause of injury was not considered, which may have affected caregiver strategies.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. No funding source is reported in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read staff-assisted visitor management as proven to improve patient safety or caregiver wellbeing. This is a qualitative study of 16 caregivers, and only four reported collaborating with staff, so it describes experiences rather than testing whether staff strategies work.