Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Corso di laurea in infermieristica - Sede di Modena
| Thesis Title | The effectiveness of intensive care diaries on outcomes in the medium and long term of the assisted person. Metasynthesis of qualitative studies. |
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| Name | Forleo Silvia |
| Supervisor(s) | Daniela Magnani, Francesca Maffei |
| Academic Year | 2020/21 |
| Thesis type | Research thesis |
Abstract
ND Diaries as a narrative reconstruction of the illness experience seem to reduce psychological distress. The purpose of the review was to summarize the qualitative evidence with respect to the benefits of using a diary during the period of hospitalization in intensive care, the medium and long-term outcomes in people discharged from intensive care and their families. METHOD The metasynthesis considered qualitative studies published from 2011 to 2021, which included family members and adults discharged from a polyvalent, cardiac, neurosurgical and cardiological intensive care unit. The phenomenon of interest was the lived experience of editing a diary during the hospital stay. The systematic search took place in seven databases. Qualitative data were assessed, extracted, and synthetized using the JBI methodology, independently by two reviewers. RESULTS Twenty-six primary studies that considered the diary experience in 373 patients, 205 family members and 141 nurses were included. For what concerns the assisted person, the studies have highlighted how the diaries help to acquire temporal and causal coherence, to connect with the outside world and to reshape one's identity. For family members the diaries help to confirm their presence and proximity and, besides, they help to better assimilate medical information. Furthermore, the diaries reassure and console. The use of a diary was found to be moderately effective on medium and long-term outcomes. CONCLUSIONS The diary can narratively reconstruct what happened, in order to identify a new meaning and start a path of growth and awareness. Keywords: diaries, intensive care, critical illness, family members, nursing.