A comparative study of the perceptions of family members patients hospitalized in intensive and cardiac care units (CCU and ICU) in regard to the importance of family needs in Golestan University of Medical Sciences 2020

Introduction: Intensive care units (ICUs) cause double stress and tension in hospitalized patients' family members. Improving care quality in these wards requires estimating the importance of the families' needs by the nurses. Therefore, the present research was designed to determine and compare the perceptions of family members of the patients hospitalized in the ICUs and cardiac care units (CCUs) about the importance of family needs and their relationship with some factors in the Golestan University of Medical Sciences, 2020.

Methods: This was a descriptive-analytical study. Eighty-eight companions of the patients admitted in the ICU and 88 companions of the patients admitted in the CCU were studied by stratified sampling, proportional, and then, available allocation. To analyze the data, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and multivariate analysis of variance in the SPSS 18 statistical software were used (the significance level was 0.05).

Results: The results revealed that in both the ICUs, the variable "the family relationship of hospitalized patients' companions" and their needs was found to be significantly different in general. This difference in all dimensions was related to the relationship between the spouse and the patient. Generally, there was no significant difference between the gender of the patient's companion and the importance of family needs in the CCU ward, but this difference was significant in general and in all dimensions in the ICU ward so that the importance of all the needs was more in the female companions.

Conclusion: This study proved that the need in the "confidence" dimension is the most important need of the family of patients admitted to the two wards (CCU) and (ICU).