Unplanned Admission to the ICU: A Qualitative Study Examining Family Member Experiences

<h3>Project Summary</h3>
<p>The project seeks to create knowledge about family members' experiences during hospital stays complicated by a patient's unplanned admission to the ICU. Qualitative data were collected from semi-structured interviews with families of patients who were transferred from acute care to the ICU after a clinical deterioration. All participants were recruited from a level-1 trauma center in Seattle, WA, where patients could be transferred to the following ICU services: medical, cardiac, surgical/trauma, or neurocritical care. Eligible family members were 18 years of age and English-speaking. They were identified by screening each ICU census for patients who were transferred from acute care to the ICU, excluding patients whose acute care or ICU stay was <24 hours. Family members were approached at the patient's bedside, and written informed consent was obtained. Consent for medical record review was provided by patients when they retained decision-making capacity or legal-next-of-kin when they did not. </p>
<h3>Data Overview</h3>
<p>Data from interview transcripts were coded based on domains from a previously validated conceptual model of clinician-surrogate communication (Torke et al). ATLAS.ti textual data analysis software (ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH, Berlin, Germany) was used for the analysis. The data available here include a few excerpts from interview transcripts that were organized in a thematic aggregate table.</p>