Healthcare Workers Perception Of Patient And Family Engagement Practice,Benefits And Barriers In Adult Intensive Care UnitA Single Site Descriptive Cross Sectional Survey Study

Objective:To describe the healthcare workers perception on practices,benefits and barriers to the successful patient and family engagement strategies.Design:This quantitative descriptive crossectional design study was conducted in five adult ICUs(Cardiac care unit,Respiratory ICU,Emergency ICU,General ICU1,and General ICU2)at a large tertiary care hospital(Qilu Hospital of Shandong University).Methods:A questionnaire was used with convenience sample of 172 healthcare workers(physicians,nurses,and respiratory therapist)who were recruited from five adult intensive care unit at Qilu Hospital of Shandong University.Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics,correlational analysis,and ordinal logistic regression analysis by using SPSS version 26.A p-value of 0.05 and 95 percent confidence intervals were considered statistically significant indicators for the studies.Results:The study found that healthcare workers perspective supports and understand the patient and family practices,their benefits as well as the barriers towards its implementation.The mean for practice perception items score was 3.43(SD=0.78).More than half of the reported PFE practices(7 out of 12=58.33%)were above the mean score.68.1%reported that,mostly engage in daily conversation with family/relative about daily progress.The least reported engagement practice was 31.3%for invitation of patients and family to share their stories and experience of care.The mean for perception benefits items score was 4.14(SD=0.59).Most of the HCWs reported to have agreed to PFE benefits(9 out of 12=66.7%).33.33%(3 out of 12)were above the mean score;i.e.,they strongly agreed.This indicate that HCWs understands the benefits of PFE in ICU.87.8%agree and strongly agreed,engagement to have increase family health literacy.The mean for perceived barriers items score was 3.65(SD=0.51).Of the 18 barriers studied they agreed that 16(88.9%)are significant barriers with most of those barriers mentioned from organizational/unit level.68%agreed that lack of knowledge,training,and leadership commitment being most significant barriers.There was statistical significance relationship between healthcare workers experience and engagement practice of welcoming inputs and feedback from patients and family,rs=0.17,p=0.04The healthcare workers lead role is essential for successful patient&family engagement.The foundation for successful engagement activities needs understanding healthcare workers perspective,role played by leaders,patients and families themselves.This study helps to understand healthcare workers perspective on the practice,benefits,and challenges hence enables to develop specific strategies to improve healthcare workers passion,creativity,and caring attitude that support not only patient and family but also healthcare workers themselves.The insight on healthcare workers perspective will provide opportunity to understand and increase patients and family engagement knowledge and skills among healthcare workers.Provide valuable insight which can help to improve service design and/or the process of receiving care such as establish polices,procedure,and protocols for patient and family engagement in ICU.Conclusion:Patient and family engagement important towards achieving better-quality health care,more-efficient care,and improved family health in ICUs.Clinical barriers including resources,hospital policies and guidelines,healthcare workers and family education should be taken into account to facilitate engagement integration to the care model.Also,high quality research studies on the effectiveness of patient and family engagement are recommended.Relevance to clinical practice:This thesis will add to the existing body of information concerning patient and family involvement in critical care areas in the advancement of health care delivery in the hospital setting.The findings can help to develop or review policies and guidelines for safe implementation of the patient and family engagement practices.Moreover,the findings provide the baseline for the promotion of the practice among stakeholders.