Investigation of emergency health care professionals' views about the presence of family members during cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Purpose: The concept of family presence during cardiopulmonary resuscitation has been a controversial topic since 1980s. International guidelines state that family members of critically ill patients should have an option to remain at the bedside during resuscitation. Despite published guidelines and research results, it is stated that this practice is not offered to families as an option and that family members are not allowed to stay with their patients during CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation). This study aimed to examine the views of emergency department health workers about the presence of family members during CPR. Materials and Methods: A total of 105 healthcare workers in the Emergency Department of Ege University Educational Hospital (Ege University Hospital) participated in the study between 10 June 2019 and 10 August 2019. The data of the study was collected by a valid data collection form which was prepared by the researchers based on the literature. As data collection form; A total of 25 questions were used in which sociodemographic information consisting of 10 questions were questioned and the opinions of emergency service health workers about the presence of family members during CPR were examined. For statistical analysis of our descriptive research, Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 25.0 (SPSS) was used. Results: 52.4% of the participants were female and 47.6% were male. In our study, the mean age of the participants was 29.1 ± 4.31 years. It was found that 49.5% of the participants in our study were nurse, 45.7% were physician, 1.9% were emergency medical technician, 1.9% were paramedic and 1% were health officer. While 13.3% of the health care workers stated that it was appropriate to have family members during CPR, 76.2% stated that they were not suitable with the idea and 10.5% stated that they were undecided. While the most worried subject by the participants was that the family member could intervene in the process during CPR (38.7%), the participants supporting that the family members should be present during CPR had some reasons as the family member could accept the death news more easily and could have less trouble in the mourning process (64.3%). The correlation of the status of receiving education of health care workers on the presence of families during CPR (p = 0.01), reading status of articles (p = 0.015), having guideline information (p = 0.001) and their opinions about the presence of family members during CPR were statistically significant. Conclusion: Education of health care professionals and creating awareness about the presence of family members during CPR could facilitate the implementation of CPR concept accompanied by family members. In addition, the establishment of legal policies on the subject may prevent different practices and reduce the concerns of the health care workers. Keywords; Emergency department; Resuscitation; Family; Emergency department nursing