Critical care nurses’ experiences of follow‐up visits to an ICU

Aim. The aim of this study was to describe critical care nurses’ experiences of follow‐up visits for formerly critically ill people discharged from an intensive care unit and their close relatives. Background. The critical illness experience affects the ill person and their close relatives not only during the stay in an intensive care unit, but also for a long time afterwards. Follow‐up visits were introduced to offer people the opportunity to talk about their experiences. This activity has not been studied earlier from the perspective of critical care nurses. Design. The design of this study was qualitative. Method. Eight critical care nurses narrated their experiences of follow‐up visits by formerly critically ill people and their close relatives to an intensive care unit. Data were collected during 2007–2008. Qualitative thematic content analysis was applied to the interview texts. Results. The findings show that to feel they were doing a good job it was vital for the critical care nurses to be well prepared for the follow‐up visits. It was difficult, in a positive way, to recognise formerly critically ill people when they returned looking healthy. The critical care nurses were disappointed that their former patients remembered so few real events. The follow‐up visits gave the critical care nurses a new picture of how the critically illness experience influenced the former patient’s everyday life during and after their stay in the intensive care unit and how it affected the lives of their close relatives. Conclusions. Through sharing the experiences of formerly critically ill peoples’ and their close relatives’ critical care nurses receive valuable feedback about their work. Relevance to clinical practice. Receiving feedback about one’s work from follow‐up visits gives critical care nurses the possibility for to evaluate given care. Follow‐up visits to intensive care units can provide them with valuable knowledge that might lead to improved nursing care.