The end of life of patients with COVID-19 in intensive care unit and the stress level on their family members: A cross-sectional study.
Alessandro Galazzi, Filippo Binda, Simone Gambazza and 7 others
PMID 35599352WHAT IT FOUND
Video calls were appreciated, but they were not linked to lower death-related stress.
Spouses had very high stress, and only 6 of 56 families visited the ICU.
Key findings
01Only 6 of 56 interviewed family members visited the ICU, while 28 made a video call.
02Probable PTSD-level stress was noted for 20 of 22 spouses and 13 of 25 offspring.
03Making an ICU visit or a video call was not associated with a positive stress score (OR 0.93, 95% CI 0.24 to 3.65).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study was done in one hospital in a heavily hit Italian region, so it may not apply to other ICUs or countries. Nursing notes about end-of-life comfort care were incomplete early in the pandemic, so the true comfort care delivered may be missing. Family members were interviewed between 6 and 18 months after the patient's death, so grief over that time may have affected stress scores. Stress was measured with one questionnaire designed for post-traumatic distress after a single event. Only the reference family member was interviewed, not all relatives, so stress in other family members may be missing. Video calls and ICU visits were not randomly assigned, so the study cannot show whether they changed stress.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that video calls reduce family stress. The study found no association between making a video call or ICU visit and a positive stress score (OR 0.93, 95% CI 0.24 to 3.65).