Intensive care nurse perspectives on family-centred rounds in adult critical care units

Background: Family-centred rounds (FCR) are a component of family involvement in critical care settings. Nurses’ active participation is vital in implementing FCR. However, there is currently a lack of rigorous literature exploring nursing perspectives of FCR in adult critical care areas. Purpose: This study explored nursing perspectives of FCR in six adult critical care units across four Southwestern Ontario hospitals. Methods: A 56-question survey was distributed to critical care nurses working at six adult critical care units through an online Qualtrics® link. Nurses did not need to have experience participating in FCR to participate in this study. Results: Seventy percent of nurses (n = 135) were overall supportive of FCR. Nurses reported that processes, such as unit culture toward FCR, may impact how well nurses are able to incorporate families into FCR. The most significant advantage of FCR noted was the healthcare team could update family on the patient’s condition. However, they reported time was a major structural barrier to FCR, and the overall greatest barrier noted was the inconsistent or unknown timing of rounds. Tests of association revealed that nurses’ overall supportiveness of FCR was statistically significantly related to their ethnicity (p = .01) and hospital site (p = <.001). Conclusion: Most nurses are supportive of FCR overall. This research highlights their perceptions of the structures and processes that support them while implementing FCR and factors that may affect their support. It may contribute to developing evidence-based best practices for a higher-quality, standardized, family-centred rounding process. Keywords: family-centred nursing, clinical rounds, critical care nursing, intensive care units