This phenomenological study was conducted in a rural area serviced by a small community hospital to answer the research question , "what is the lived experience of the spouse of the critically ill patient." The informants were three female spouses who had experienced critical care as the spouse of a critically ill male patient within the past year. Once verbal consent was obtained, written consent was obtained by sending a letter explaining the study, along with a consent form describing the risks and the benefits.Data were collected by means of tape-recorded unstructured forty-five minute interview. The study was strictly voluntary and all tape-recorded data collected were identified by numbers only and destroyed at the completion of the study. The informant was asked the question, "Tell me what it was like for you when your husband was critically ill?" Data were analyzed via the hermaneutical process of Heidegger as outlined by Giorgi.Each informant was provided the opportunity to reflect and recall this lived experience. The informants shared seven common themes even though each experience was individually unique and separate. The seven themes that emerged were (a) fear, (b) educational needs, (c) self-sacrifice, (d) center of focus shift, (e) family event, (f) the need to discuss system contact and, (g) tomorrow.The themes suggest that closure has not occurred for the spouse of the critically ill person. The findings indicate that the event is not limited to the initial hospitalization, but that long term changes and perceptions are apparent from the informants' perspectives.Implications for the nurse clinician, nursing education and research were described. Recommendations for further research include further study on the long term effects of critical illness on the spouse of the critically ill client. / School of Nursing

The purpose of this study was to test the effect of the expressive writing and the expressive talking interventions on uncertainty and coping processes in Thai family members of patients in a coma, and to examine changes in positive emotion, negative emotion, and cognitive process word-use over three days. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest, three group design was conducted with 45 Thai family members of patients in a coma who were in the intensive care units (ICU) at a hospital in Thailand. Three ICUs were randomly assigned into groups: the expressive writing, the expressive talking, and the control group. Participants of the expressive writing group (n = 15) were asked to write about their thoughts and feelings following standard guidance for expressive writing, those of the expressive talking group (n = 15) were interviewed with questions guided by the story path approach, whereas those of the control group (n = 15) did not receive any specific interventions. Participants completed the Thai version of the Mishel Uncertainty in Illness Scale-Family Member Form and the Thai version of the revised version of the Ways of Coping Scale before and after the interventions. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing

The purpose of this qualitative research is to provide an in-depth exploration of the impact that a diagnosis of a terminal illness has on family functioning. The goal is to gain insight into adult children's personal experience when a parent is diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer. This study explores how families respond, adapt and cope when this specific family member is diagnosed with a terminal illness. It also explores any significant changes in relationships within the family and any shifts in the roles of the members and how they adjusted to such shifts. / The study is informed by a phenomenological paradigm and used an explorative, qualitative design, which included semi-structured interviews. Participant text and "found poetry" is used in order to present a more accurate account of the participants' experiences. Found poetry provides an opportunity to hear the participant's voices by taking direct quotes from their transcripts and forming them into a poem. Themes of denial, anger, helplessness, hope and anticipatory grief/mourning are portrayed in the findings of this study. The difficult emotional dilemmas and tensions that people have to work through when faced with a family member dying are discussed. The realization of the loss of future relationships will be identified as one of the greatest impacts of the illness. This study shows the lack of professional supports and resources that are available for each participant's family in being faced with the diagnosis of a terminal illness, and will address a needed consideration for social work practice.

This descriptive exploratory study was designed to determine the perceived importance of selected needs of family members of critically ill brain-injured patients. In addition, the personal/demographic factors which may have influenced the needs of these family members were investigated, as well as the reasons family members perceived these needs as important or unimportant. A convenience sample of one family member for each of 15 critically ill brain-injured patients was selected from two tertiary care hospitals and the community. Family members were interviewed using a pre-determined interview guide and asked to verbally rate 20 need statements on a four-point Likert-type scale. Generally, family members perceived all 20 needs to be important. However, the importance of each need was influenced by the family members' personal/demographic factors. No significant statistical relationship was found between personal/demographic factors and the family members' perceptions of the importance of selected needs. However, the findings of the study suggest that family members relate their needs to their present experience, and thus individual assessment of family members' needs is crucial. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Nursing, School of / Graduate

No description available.