The effect of family members’ supportive presence in neurological intensive care unit on their anxiety

Background and Aim: Patients hospitalization is associated with family members anxiety. Fulfilling family members needs such as providing them with information and helping them have physical contacts with their patients can alleviate their anxiety. This study was conducted to investigate the impacts of family members supportive presence in a neurological intensive care unit on their anxiety Materials and Methods: In this clinical trial, sixty family members of patients who had been hospitalized in a neurological intensive care unit were recruited and randomly allocated to the experimental and the control groups-30 persons in each group. Family members anxiety was evaluated by using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. The study intervention was the provision of basic care services to patients by their family members twice a day for six days during the first week of hospitalization in intensive care unit. Study data were analyzed by using the SPSS software (11.5) and by conducting the paired and the independentsles t, the Chisquare, and the Fisher s exact tests. Results: At the beginning of the study, respectively 90% and 86.7% of patients family members in the experimental and the control groups suffered from anxiety. Before the study, the difference between the groups regarding the mean score of anxiety was not statistically significant (P=0.767). Compared with pretest readings, the posttest mean scores of anxiety in the experimental and the control groups decreased by 7.87 and 2.74 units, respectively. The pretestposttest mean difference of anxiety score in the experimental group was significantly greater than the control group (P 0.001). Conclusion: Family members supportive presence in neurological intensive care unit significantly reduces their anxiety. Critical care nurses can alleviate family members anxiety through facilitating their supportive presence at their patients bedside