VISITING POLICY IN INTENSIVE CARE UNITS: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Patient visit is one of the ways to perform family-based care, but despite many studies, there is still no agreement on how to perform ICU visits and there are different policies. This qualitative study was conducted to evaluate the current ICU visiting policy of Kashani and Hajar hospitals in Shahrekord, Iran.

This is a qualitative descriptive-exploratory study. 35 participants (20 nurses, 9 family members of patients, and 6 patients hospitalized in intensive care units of Shahrekord teaching hospitals) enrolled in this study. Data were collected using in-depth semi-structured interviews and were analyzed by inductive thematic analysis.

Findings showed that visits to intensive care units of the studied hospitals are limited. Participants referred to two topics: (1) "rationales for restricting visitation," including the physical structure of the ICU, and the specific nature of the ICU patient, and (2) "current policy for visiting", including visiting through the window (restricted) and brief (flexible) visits.

Since the current policies and the nurseschr('39') viewpoints should be considered for future planning to improve the current situation and implement an operational and effective plan, it can be possible to use the results about visiting policy and its related reason to move toward open visiting.