Maimonides Evening of Research

Nurse Winner

Josephine C. Imperatrice

Nurses' and Physicians' Perception of Family Presence During Resuscitation in the Emergency Department

Submitter

Josephine C. Imperatrice MSN, RN (Nurse): Mentor: Kelly Reilly PhD, RN, BC
Department of Emergency Medicine

Josephine C. Imperatrice MSN, RN; Antonios Likourezos, MA, MPH; Kelly Reilly PhD, RN, BC

Objectives

To identify, compare, and evaluate the differences in perceptions of family presence between nurses’ and physicians’ during resuscitation in an emergency department of a large, single, tertiary-care, urban teaching hospital

Methods

183 nurses and 85 physicians who provided resuscitative care in the emergency department were invited via e-mail to participate in the study. They were asked to complete the validated FPR-BS 26-item Likert scale which measure perceptions of risks and benefits of family presence to the patient’s family, the patient, and members of the resuscitation team. Response options range from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Independent t-tests were used to identify mean differences between perceptions of FPDR-BS between nurses’ and physicians’. Significance was set at p <0.5. Data were analyzed via SPSS 24.0. A total of 103 participants responded [(n=62) nurses and (n=41) physicians]. The total sample population (n=103) enabled detection of a medium effect size (Cohen’s d=.57), assuming alpha = .05, power =.80 utilizing a two-tailed test.

Results

There were no statistically significant difference between nurses’ and physicians’ mean perceptions of FPDR in the emergency department (3.60 vs. 3.75; p= .455). A total of 84 participants (81.4%) agreed that family members should be given the option to be present when a loved one is being resuscitated. When asked who should make the overall decision about FPDR, (42%) indicated the patient, (25.2%) indicated the family, (23.3%) indicated the physician and (8.7%) indicated the nurse. A total of 72 nurses and physicians (69.9%) agreed that FPDR should be a component of family-centered care. Sixty-one percent of nurses and physicians reported that their colleagues are supportive of FPDR. More than half of the nurses and physicians surveyed agreed that FPDR would have a positive effect on nurse satisfaction scores (58.9%, n=60) and would have a positive effect on physician satisfaction scores (62.2%, n=64).

Conclusion Implication

There is overwhelming support for the intervention of FPDR by nurses and physicians. These finding suggest the need for clinical practice guidelines for FPDR in the emergency department to provide a consistent implementation process.