Emergency nurses’ perceptions of the difficult factors of surrogate decision support for patients’ families

• Published in: Journal of Japanese Society for Emergency Medicine Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 522 - 532
• Main Authors: MOMIYAMA, Sadami, KAKEYA, Kazumi, YANAGI, Hisako
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Japanese Society for Emergency Medicine 30.06.2022; 一般社団法人 日本臨床救急医学会
• Subjects: critical care; emergency nurses; family nursing; nursing support; surrogate decision-making; 代理意思決定; 家族看護; 救命救急; 救急看護師; 看護支援
• ISSN: 1345-0581; 2187-9001
• DOI: 10.11240/jsem.25.522

Purpose: This study aim to evaluate the actual status of practice and importance perceived by emergency nurses for support of patients’ families who make surrogate decisions, and to clarify the factors that make it difficult to practice.Methods: We conducted an anonymous questionnaire survey among 164 nurses working in emergency centers at 64 facilities.Results: The age of the subjects was 35.6±8.1 years, and the number of years working in the emergency center was 5.1±4.2 years. There was a strong correlation between the level of importance perceived by the emergency nurses and the level of practice (r=0.89, p<0.001). However, there were some items that could not be practiced sufficiently, and items related to support from multiple professions were the most common. The most common reason for the difficulty in practice was that they had to prioritize life-saving nursing tasks for patients.Conclusion: Surrogate decision-making support for emergency nurses was found to be a challenge in that they were not able to devote enough time to family support in the emergency situation, and furthermore, there was a lack of collaboration and coordination with other professions and the need to improve this system.