Staff attitudes to family presence during resuscitation:

Summary 

Background

In March 2006 results of relatives’ attitudes to family presence during resuscitation were presented in the Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal as part of a 3-year research project examining the relatives and staff attitudes to family presence during resuscitation [Holzhauser K, Finucane J, De Vries SM. Family presence during resuscitation: a randomised controlled trial of the impact of family presence. Aust Emerg Nurs J 2006;8(4):139–47]. This current article presents Part A, the pre–post intervention results of the staff attitudes stage of the study. The aim was to determine if staff attitudes to relatives’ presence in resuscitation changed post-implementation of the intervention. A third article, Part B, will present results regarding staff attitudes immediately post resuscitation.

Methods

This study was undertaken using a pre-test/post-test intervention design using survey methodology. The intervention consisted of a randomised controlled trial of family presence during resuscitation.

Results

Staff felt the advantages to family presence include the ability to get a patient history quickly, the patient and relative appear comfortable with the process and there were positive outcomes to the management of the resuscitation. Minimal disadvantages expressed included the relatives were in the way and staff performance suffered.

Conclusions

Overall, staff felt there were positive aspects for relatives being present during resuscitation. There was a positive change in staff attitudes to relatives’ presence during resuscitation over time.

Keywords: Resuscitation, Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Family presence, Staff attitudes