Qualitative Study of Humanizing and Dehumanizing Treatment in the ICU

The article, as mentioned above, is the research study painted to identify and understand how the patients, as well as the family members, experience humanizing or dehumanizing treatment while they are in the ICU. As far as the design of the research paper is concerned, the paper had followed a qualitative research study. The paper had conducted a study through the social media responses in order to collect the data as well as they have utilized the focus group audio recordings for the qualitative analysis for this paper. The methodology that has been followed by this paper is an online survey and focus group discussions for collecting their primary data. The paper has utilized 40 patients and family members add 31 ICU team members as part of their focus group and survey sample. The paper has conducted this survey on three major parameters of ICU experiences which includes communication, outcomes and the causes of dehumanisation. The paper has explored in detail the remarks as well as the communication exchanges that occurred between the ICU members and the families of patients in order to identify the dehumanizing factors and what is the role of distressing remarks. In many cases, this has also been found that whenever the patient’s family had felt that the ICU team members had failed to communicate with the family members or the patients, the claims of dehumanizing has also increased by many folds. Please stop similarly under the outcome sections. It has also been found that most of the dehumanizing have been associated with the loss of trust in the medical team or the loss of motivational factors among the family members of the patients in ICU recovery. Other emotional factors such as distress, anxiety, guilt and depression have also played a very vital role in humanizing or dehumanizing the entire medical process. As far as the conclusion of the paper is concerned, it has concluded that ICU clinical are often responsible for creating patients and families to feel by communicating poorly or by failing to reach a favourable outcome.  

The study has been conducted in a very detailed and descriptive way; however, there are a few Flaws and limitations of the research paper which have greatly influenced the outcome of the research paper. The first major weakness that has been identified in this paper is the data collection methods that have utilized these social media platforms for conducting their semi-structured survey. Therefore, authentication of different responses to this survey is highly questionable as there could be multiple false or misguided responses which make greatly influence the outcome of the research paper. Move another major flaw of this paper is not providing any intervention strategies for conducting the research. As this has been found that the paper is highly subjected to different emotional conditions and perceived causes; therefore, in order to maintain a fair and objective approach, it was very necessary to implement different intervention strategies. 

Factors Affecting Patient Experience: Communication, Outcomes, and Emotional Factors

This research mainly focuses on identifying and studying the experiences of various family members and relatives of a patient regarding the experiences of meeting bill using and communicating with the patient in the ICU getting a mechanical ventilator while being conscious. According to the background of this research, the paper tries to identify and fill the gap in research regarding the recent practice of little to no sedation for invasive mechanical ventilation for a patient suffering from different types of respiratory distress. The paper has generally identified that this process, even though being very common, have very little amount of research done on it. The paper has conducted a thorough reaction of the family members regarding the limited usage of sedation for mechanical ventilators towards the patients. In order to collect their data, the paper has utilized qualitative data collection methods where they have conducted the interview of 10 relatives visiting there patience under two occasions. The interview has been conducted in two phases past when the person was being ventilated without sedation and the other one week later When the patient was discharged or the ICU. This type of double interview has helped the researchers to get the initial reaction of the family members of the patients as well as the final reaction. This has helped the paper to intervene and eliminate the factor of human perception and momentary emotions. The researchers have gained a greater insight and deeper understanding of the reactions of the patients. In order to analyze the data the paper has utilized the hermeneutic interpretation according to the results of the paper this has been found that the patients who where getting ventilations while they were conscious enable them to judge the conditions of the patience in a more efficient manner allowing the relatives to be in better contact. This has further enhanced the sense of control over the situation creating a positive sense of emotions among the relatives as well as the patients. This also enhance the humanizing factors as well as the trust over the medical team even further. however, there have also been responses which have stated a disappointment towards providing invasive mechanical ventilation without sedating the patients. 

The paper is well detailed as well as provides a complete insight about the reaction of the patients and they loved ones however the sample size of the paper is relatively low which fields through considered the reaction of different people. Apart from that another major flaw or weakness that this paper has is that the paper does not acknowledge the reaction and behavior of the ICU teams for this occasion and how this experience is enhance the pawn between the patient and the medical team. 

Data Collection through Social Media Responses and Focus Group Audio Recordings

This research paper mainly focuses on the experiences of the partners or the spouses of the critically ill patients in the ICU. The paper has utilized a complete narrative approach to present its findings and analysis. The paper explores what the spouses go through when there partners are critically ill and are being treated in the ICU. The paper in order to collect data have utilized the qualitative data collection method and has relied mainly on the primary data collection method. The sample size that has been selected for the collection of data is seven people. The paper has divided the entire analysis under three different themes. The three different themes included Bing present at the moment and experiencing the entire incident with their own eyes, putting oneself in the second place and the third theme is living in complete uncertainty. The paper has explored in detail about the emotions and natural behaviors of these spouses throughout the incident. The narrative style of this research paper was also one of the excellent styles selected as this add held the paper to maintain their integrity as well as the dignity of the critical hill spouses and departures emotions. The paper had ensured that none of the participants of the research where either dis respected or their identities have been compromised. The paper according to its found findings have stated that the state of uncertainty was one of the more worst outcome for the critically ill persons and one of the worst impacted incident over the spouses or the partners of the patients. The paper has also explored how be incidents had impacted he thought process as well as the feelings of the individuals. The paper had concluded that even though the continue clinical treatment and the prognosis it was not of a high or very good quality they add the desire to remain hopeful and expected a positive result. 

The paper has also explored in detail about the feelings and emotions as well as provided a greater insight about the type of behavior that could be expected within the intensive care units. The paper has also found that receiving support from the family members and friends where also helpful in determining the behavior and responses of the individuals. however, there were certain amount of weaknesses and flaws in the entire research which included the sample size that was interviewed for this research. The researcher interviewed only seven partners which does not suffice for the entirety of the given population. And the second most weakest point that this paper has exhibited is the failing to understand the mental state of the individuals who are being interviewed. They have failed to take into consideration the amount of perceived opinions and views which is impacting the behavior and emotions of the spouses. 

Reference

Basile, M. J., Rubin, E., Wilson, M. E., Polo, J., Jacome, S. N., Brown, S. M., … & Hajizadeh, N. (2021). Humanizing the ICU Patient: A Qualitative Exploration of Behaviors Experienced by Patients, Caregivers, and ICU Staff. Critical care explorations, 3(6).doi:

 10.1097/CCE.0000000000000463

Engström, Å., & Söderberg, S. (2004). The experiences of partners of critically ill persons in an intensive care unit. Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 20(5), 299-308. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iccn.2004.05.009

Karlsson, V., Forsberg, A., & Bergbom, I. (2010). Relatives’ experiences of visiting a conscious, mechanically ventilated patient—a hermeneutic study. Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 26(2), 91-100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iccn.2009.12.001