The needs of patient relatives who stay at 3rd step intensive care unit

Of the 3rd step intensive care units are places where patients with such complicated conditions as respiratory insufficiency or multiple organ dysfunctions are admitted and respiration support and high level of medical care and treatments are provided. That study was descriptively and cross-sectionally undertaken in order to determine needs of the relatives of the patients who stayed at 3rd step intensive care unit. The study was done at the general intensive care unit of Adana Çukurova Dr. Aşkım Tüfekçi Public Hospital under Public Hospitals Union between September 2015 and February 2017. The population of the study was composed of the significant others of patients who were hospitalized at the tertiary intensive care unit between the September 2015 and the February 2016. No sampling was done and the whole population was targeted. 180 significant others of the patients volunteered to take part in the study. In order to collect the data, "Investigator's Personal Information Form" prepared by the researcher and "Critical Care Family Needs Inventory" (CCFNI) developed by Molter (1979) were used to determine the needs of relatives of patients. The data were collected using a face to face interview. Descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation Analysis, t test in independent groups, one way Anova test and Tukey test were used in the evaluation of the data. The results were evaluated at 95% confidence interval, p <0.05 significance level. "Critical Care Family Needs Inventory" of patient relatives; Total score average of 144,34 ± 19,00, "support" and "proximity" subscales 44.78±8.85 for, 41.60±5.49 for "knowledge" subscale; 33.62±3.37 for "assurance" subscale and 24.32±4.88 for "comfort" subscale. As a result; It has been found that the relatives of the patients in the intensive care unit need support and proximity, knowledge, assurance and finally comfort need. The knowledge and assurance requirements of patients relatives who were planned to intensive care unit and those who had previous intensive care experience increased. Key Words: Intensive care, family needs at intensive care, intensive care nursing