Quality of Nurses' Communication with Mechanically Ventilated Patients in a Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit.
Marzieh Momennasab, Mohammadreza Shaker Ardakani, Fereshte Dehghan Rad and 3 others
PMID 31487439WHAT IT FOUND
In a cardiac surgery ICU, ventilated patients initiated most communications, mostly about physical needs or pain; emotions took 1.1%, no aids were used, and both nurses and patients reported low satisfaction.
Key findings
01Patients initiated 75.43% of the 175 observed communications, while nurses initiated 24.54%, mostly to check consciousness and encourage breathing.
02Communication content was mostly physical needs (50.3%) and pain (23.5%), with only 1.1% about emotions, and no word or picture boards were used.
03Only 5.7% of patients and 0% of nurses were completely satisfied, and 20% of nurses were not at all satisfied.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only one cardiac surgery ICU in Iran was studied, so the results may not apply to other units. The observer was a staff member present during routine care, and nurses may have behaved differently because they were watched. The observation checklist was prepared for the study and its inter-rater reliability was not tested. Patients were selected by convenience sampling, and the study included only 35 patients and 10 nurses. No intervention was tested, so the paper describes communication patterns and satisfaction but cannot show what would improve them.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the Vice-Chancellor for Research at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude from this paper that word boards or asking about emotions will improve care. It observed usual ICU communication in one unit and did not test an intervention, so the 1.1% emotional content and low satisfaction describe a gap, not a proven solution.