Nurses’ Experience in Palliative Care in the Intensive Care Unit
Keywords:
Intensive care units, Nurses’ experiences, Palliative careAbstract
The present study was aimed at describing the experience of registered nurses in palliative care of two Intensive Care Units (ICUs) in a hospital using a qualitative Husserlian phenomenology. Data providers in the study were 10 registered nurses with experience in palliative care in ICU, working in ICU for at least 2 years. Data were collected by using individual in-depth interview and were analyzed by Colaizzi’s approach. The trustworthiness of this qualitative study was established by following Lincoln and Guba’s criteria.
The findings revealed that the definitions of providing palliative care in the ICUs, from nurses’ experiences, were given in 7 themes as follows: 1) caring as holistic care, 2) caring to reduce suffering and to increase quality of life, 3) incorporating family members and relatives into the care, 4) caring for both patients and their family, 5) caring is to cure, not to cause illness, 6) caring from the start and together with cure and 7) caring to focus on the end-of-life period. The findings of this study provide basic information of palliative care in the ICUs from nurses’ experiences, and can be further used to improve the quality of palliative care in ICUs.
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