Exploring family functioning and ‐ hardiness in families’ experiencing adult intensive care – A cross-sectional study

Being cared for in an intensive care unit affects both the patient being cared for and the family in various ways. The family is of great importance for the recovery of the former intensive-care patient. The aim is to explore family functioning and family hardiness in families of former intensive care patients. A cross-sectional study using two self-reported questionnaires. Former adult intensive care patients and their family were recruited to participate between December 2017 and June 2019. The data were coded and entered the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 25, for analysis. To explore questionnaire data, descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were performed. Scale values were calculated on, both family wise and between the patients and the family members. STROBE checklist was used. Data was collected from 60 families (60 former intensive cared patients and 85 family members) and showed that 50 families scored healthy family functioning and 52 high strengths in hardiness. The data showed small variations between and within families for family functioning and family hardiness, there were only two families scoring low for both family functioning and hardiness. The variation was higher within the families, but there was no significance level.The conclusions were that family functioning and hardiness was, to a large extent, assessed as good by the families. Nevertheless, it is important to help the family obtain information and support. So, the family need to continue to communicate, finding coping abilities and strengths in adopting new strategies to protect the family unit. The family are very important for members’ mental and physical recovery as the health of one family member affects the family as a unit.