Relationship Between the Needs of Turkish Relatives of Patients Admitted to an Intensive Care Unit and Their Coping Styles

Abstract

Admission to an intensive care unit is a traumatic event for many patients’ relatives. Also, the relatives may be subject to many requirements to during this process. Therefore, it is very important to determine their requirements and coping styles. This study used a descriptive, relational design. The sample of the research consisted of 247 relatives of patients staying in six intensive care units. It was found that, 65.2% of the patients’ relatives were women, and their mean age was 37.25 ± 12.7 years. What they mostly needed was support, proximity, information, assurance and comfort. In that order; among the coping styles it was found that they usually used the following approaches: self-confident approach, an problem-focused coping method; was found to be used by relatives most frequently, followed by helpless approach, an emotion-focused coping style. Requirements: Assurance, information, support and comfort sub-dimension scores and problem-focused coping style; self-confident approach and social support search approach sub-dimension scores between statistically positive, significant relationship was found. Information, proximity, support and comfort sub-dimension scores and emotion-focused coping style; helpless approach and submissive sub-dimension scores between statistically positive, significant relationship was found (p<0.05). It was found that patients’ relatives used the helpless approach and submissive approach to cope with stres: during this process their information needs increased and upon fulfillment of requirements, they started using self-confident approach and the social support approach, which are problem-focused coping styles.