Relaying information from the physicians to the patients’ families by the nurses affects the patient’s wellbeing as well as the quality and outcome of the stay at the ICU. The aim of the study is to demonstrate the barriers which affect the role of communication among the nurses and patients families in the ICU.
The logistics like where the surgeon has other patients to attend to during the day thus he has inadequate time to communicate the patient’s family or conversations are interrupted. Some surgeons are only available on certain days of the week and when available the number of appointments awaiting them is unmanageable hence they prioritize some families.
It’s unethical to discuss prognosis, also the outcome of the care was unclear to both the surgeon and the patient’s family. Discussing the prognosis might lead to legal ramifications since some information is meant to be confidential. The patient deserves the privacy so it’s not prudent to share some information even if it’s a family member.
Some healthcare intensive care unit workers are not properly trained in communication. Relaying prognosis information to families is hard and most times it’s not properly relayed.
From the above illustrations it’s clear that the way patient’s family members, nurses and physicians interact contributes to the ineffective communication in the intensive care unit. Clearly the outcomes show that nurses and physician’s communication contributes to the safety and recovery of the patients. To eliminate the communication barriers more educating should be carried out to teach the patient’s family how to behave , teach the nurses how to relay information between the patient’s family and the surgeons and surgeons to plan their schedule so they can have adequate time to discuss the progress of the patient with the nurse and the family.