Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Introduction: although many studies confirm the will of relatives to remain during cardiopulmonary resuscitation of their loved ones who are hospitalized in ICU, this rarely happens in Italy, even in the case of “open ICU”. Nurses and physicians are often against these people’s will for various reasons that have never been fully clarified. Purpose: the purpose is to analyse the experiences, opinions and emotions of nurses and physicians about the presence of family members during resuscitation. Materials and methods: for the aim of this research, it has been conducted a qualitative, phenomenological study that has involved 24 health professionals:17 nurses and 7 physicians all operating in an ICU in Northern Italy, that is open 24 hours a day to the relatives and allows them to attend CPR. Each attendee was given a personal and professional sheet, that they would need in order to describe the features of the sample. Subsequently, a semi-structured interview was conducted with the help of five guidance questions, created after an analysis of the reference literature. Results: 6 dominant themes and 20 recurrent secondary themes emerged from data analysis amongst the attendees. The majority of health professionals say that they agree with the presence of the family during CPR, and they explained some of the advantages and benefits. Nevertheless, some fears persist, even amongst the most experienced professionals, even though negative experiences are not related to these. Discussion and Conclusions: The presence of the family during CPR appears to be well accepted by health professionals. Defusing courses and clinical audits in teams may be useful to reduce difficulties and fears in managing family presence, as well as a specific training that allows the professional to be able to handle any problematic situation.