Sensory Experience in Patients at ICU of Educational Hospitals of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, 2002

Perception and Feeling are two parts of each sensory experience. Sensory reception of information proceeding about internal or external environment is conducted by sensory root. Humans inform themselves of their surrounding by receiving and organizing sensory stimulants. This conception and stimulant organization is called sensory reception. When a help seeker is admitted to a health care organization, he/she encounters stimulants which are different in quality and quantity from past stimulants and this causes sensory changes in him. The patient who is admitted to ICU ward is exposed to overburden or sensory deprivation due to some critical situations and complex methods of therapy. This is a descriptive study which was performed on 45 cases using simple random sampling method. A three-part questionnaire was used to collect the data which were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings showed that the subjects experienced no, very little or occasional unpleasant sensory reception in more than 80% of the cases (without sensory overburden). But the assessment of emotional reactions indicated 39.8% had experienced pain, 18.5% anxiety, 12% fear, 7.4% anger and 0.9% hating, which probably happened because of sensory deprivation arising from less family visiting and lack of knowledge about disease. Since patients in ICU experience some unpleasant emotional reactions, in order to decrease this experience, it is recommended to educate the patients and increase the duration of visiting time.