Communication within an intensive care setting

Published Date: 07th October 2016

Publication Authors: , Fuller A

​Introduction

The ability to communicate well with patients and their relatives is a fundamental clinical skill in intensive care medicine and central to good medical practice. Communication at the bedside, even when the patient is unconscious or sedated, may often be recalled by critical care survivors and can impact upon long-term psychological outcomes[1].The Intensive Care Society released guidelines for the provision of intensive care services and one area which was highlighted was the patient and relative perspective, the importance of effective communication with relatives and patients and valuable time spent talking to the patient[2].The aim of this audit was to assess the communication skills on the daily ward rounds between the team leader, normally the on call Consultant, and the patient at the bedside.

Methods

An observational study comprising of 32 daily ward rounds on the 14 bedded Critical Care Unit (CCU) at Whiston hospital between October and November 2015. An average of 11 patients per ward round were recorded including non-ventilated and ventilated patients. A data collection tool was used which assessed whether the Consultant leading the ward round introduced themselves, explained what their role was and introduced the rest of the team.

Results

Out of the 348 patients who were on the CCU within this time period, the majority of these patients were not ventilated. Saying that it was found that only 53% of Consultants introduced themselves, 52% explained their role and 45% introduced the rest of the team. There seemed to be a significant difference in the communication between Consultants and ventilated patients, showing that only 16% introduced themselves, 14% explained their role and 11% introduced the rest of the team.

Conclusions

The communication between patients and doctors within the CCU calls for vast improvement. Given the evidence as mentioned, it is imperative that strategies are put in place to help improve the results which were found. This would include a simple adjunct next to the bedside to help remind the Consultant about the importance of effective communication. It is worthwhile re-auditing once this implementation has been put in place to see whether communication has improved.

Sim, K; Fuller, A. (2016). Communication within an intensive care setting . Critical Care. 20 (Suppl 2), 179

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