Improving the Quality of Family Engagement in the Intensive Care Unit Through Essential Care Partner Programs

In this department paper, we present insights from our research related to family engagement strategies in the intensive care unit (ICU) with the ultimate aim of improving quality of care and patient and family outcomes. Patient survivors of ICU admission and their family members have reported long-term physical, psychological, and cognitive disabilities referred to as post intensive care syndrome (PICS and PICS-F, respectively). Meaningful engagement and empowerment of family, friends, and other key informal carers (family hereafter) in the ICU has been long suggested as a part of the ABCDEF bundle of evidence-based guidelines to improve quality of family-centered care and for the prevention of PICS and PICS-F (Table). Meaningful engagement and empowerment of family in the ICU can have positive health impacts on family. A recent systematic review of randomized-controlled trials of family-centered interventions in the ICU, for example, reported positive outcomes for patients such as anxiety, satisfaction, post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression, and health-related quality of life. Another systematic review examining the effectiveness of family-centered interventions on family caregivers, though not specific to ICU, also reported improvements in caregiver burden, quality of life, stress, and depression for all involved.