Visiting policies in the adult intensive care units: A complete survey of Dutch ICUs

Treatment in an intensive care unit (ICU) is not only very stressful for the patient but also for the family as well. An open visiting policy, defined as a policy that imposes no restrictions on visiting hours, duration of visits and/or number of visitors, seems to fit very well both patient and fam...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Intensive & critical care nursing 2011-02, Vol.27 (1), p.27-30
Main Authors: Spreen, Afien E., Schuurmans, Marieke J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Family
Guidelines as Topic
Health Facility Size
Health Services Needs and Demand
Hospitals, General
Hospitals, Teaching
Hospitals, University
Humans
Intensive care
Intensive care unit
Intensive care units
Intensive Care Units - organization & administration
Netherlands
Nurse Administrators - organization & administration
Nurses
Nursing
Nursing Administration Research
Nursing care
Open visiting policy
Organizational Policy
Patient and family needs
Patient-Centered Care
Patients
Pediatrics
Questionnaires
Restricted visiting policy
Surveys and Questionnaires
Teaching hospitals
Telephone services
Time Factors
Visitors
Visitors to Patients
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Summary:Treatment in an intensive care unit (ICU) is not only very stressful for the patient but also for the family as well. An open visiting policy, defined as a policy that imposes no restrictions on visiting hours, duration of visits and/or number of visitors, seems to fit very well both patient and family needs. The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the current situation of Dutch ICUs visiting policies. Nationwide, telephone-based questionnaire survey. (Head)nurses of all ICUs. The results of this study show that none of the ICUs have an open visiting policy, defined as a policy that imposes no restrictions on visiting time, duration of visits and/or number of visitors. The majority of the Dutch ICUs (85.7%) has restricted visiting policies. Responses were obtained from 100% of the ICUs. Despite several international guidelines, research and literature about unrestricted visiting hours on the ICUs, none of the ICUs in this study operates with such a visiting policy. If we take these results into account then the question rises if ICUs are aware of these patients and family needs on the ICUs.
ISSN:0964-3397
1532-4036
DOI:10.1016/j.iccn.2010.10.002