Critically ill patients' experiences of nursing care in the intensive care unit.

BACKGROUND: Understanding critically ill patients' experiences of nursing care is an important aspect that can improve quality of care in the intensive care unit.

AIM: To elicit critically ill patients' experiences of nursing care in the adult intensive care units.

DESIGN: A qualitative descriptive design was utilized.

METHODS: Sixteen patients who had a predicted mortality risk of above 50% within the first 24 h of admission to the intensive care unit and had been discharged to the ward were purposively selected. The study was conducted at three academic affiliated, tertiary/quaternary specialist hospitals in South Africa. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with the selected participants until a point of data saturation was reached. Data were analysed using a conventional content analysis technique (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). Lincoln and Guba's criteria for ensuring the trustworthiness of qualitative research were applied.

FINDINGS: Four major themes emerged: 'being in someone's shoes', 'communication', 'presence' and 'religion and spirituality'.

CONCLUSIONS: Even though some participants' responses reflected 'good' nursing care, the majority of the participants had negative experiences in relation to the nursing care they received while admitted in the selected intensive care units.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: This study demonstrates critically ill patients' voices and preferences of intensive nursing care and describes some issues that require not only nurses' but also managerial improvements and interventions in order to ensure quality care and, eventually, patients' satisfaction with intensive nursing care.