ICUsteps is proud to announce the release of a major new information resource for family and friends of patients in critical care. End of Life in Intensive Care is a important addition to our library of patient and relative information sheets.
Though most critical care patients survive, sadly this isn't always the case. This publication fills a gap by providing helpful information about what happens when someone might be at the end of life in an ICU, what to expect and how relatives, family and friends can support the patient and themselves.
ICUsteps' Catherine White led production of resource in collaboration with healthcare professionals and family representation. In her news update about publication of End of Life in Intensive Care, she explains why this information is so desperately needed.
"Having a relative dying in ICU is so hard on so many different levels. For many patients, care in intensive care is due to an emergency and so it is not planned or expected. The experience can be a rollercoaster of uncertainty for relatives, who might not know if the patient will survive or die, whether to hope or to grieve. They can’t begin to prepare themselves for either - or rather, they have to comprehend the possibility of both, and inhabit that frightening and unpredictable place."
Read Catherine's full article on the background to the development of this information sheet for the full story.
We need your help
Help us get this important information to the people who need it, at the time and place it's most vital. We've produced a poster for ICUs to download and print for display it in the Relatives' Room or to hand out as a flyer. Scanning the QR code will take readers straight to the information sheet.
As Catherine summarises it,
"We hope that this information resource will help relatives at a very difficult and distressing time. And most of all, we hope that it reassures patients and relatives that moving from life sustaining treatment in ICU does not mean a withdrawal of care, and that patients will be supported and be given the right care to help them during this time."