Objective: To investigate the nurses' attitude towards open visitation policy in intensive care unit (ICU) and its potential influence factors, and further to provide evidence for carrying out this policy in ICU.
Methods: A self-designed, anonymous online questionnaire of "attitude of ICU nurses to open visiting system in ICU" was performed in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China from October to December 2019, using convenient sampling method approach. Only nurses working in ICU (including specialized ICU, but excluding the critical ward in general ward) and willing to participate in the survey were included. The survey included 35 items, including the general information of each participant, the attitude towards the implementation of the open visitation system in ICU and its potential influencing factors. Ordinal Logistic regression analysis was used to identify the significant influencing factors.
Results: A total of 1 558 questionnaires were sent out and 1 546 effective questionnaires were retrieved, with a response rate of 99.2%. Overall, 32.2% of them agreed with the policy, 41.3% of them disagree with the policy and 26.5% of them were uncertain. The Ordinal Logistic regression analysis showed that the independent influencing factors of ICU nurses' attitude towards open visitation policy including the possibility of increasing healthcare-associated infection [disagree: β = 1.327, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) was 0.242 to 2.413, P = 0.017; uncertain: β = 0.697, 95%CI was 0.244 to 1.151, P = 0.003], the improvement of nurses' job satisfaction (disagree: β = -1.406, 95%CI was -1.750 to -1.062, P = 0.000; uncertain: β = -0.748, 95%CI was -1.030 to -0.466, P = 0.000), the information support for medical staffs from family members (disagree: β = -0.644, 95%CI was -1.048 to -0.240, P = 0.002; uncertain: β = -0.422, 95%CI was -0.721 to -0.124, P = 0.006), the feasibility that the family members can assist the nurses in the basic nursing for patients (uncertain: β = -0.465, 95%CI was -0.729 to -0.202, P = 0.001), reducing the time that a nurse spent on caring for the patients (uncertain: β = 0.349, 95%CI was 0.052 to 0.646, P = 0.021), improving early rehabilitation (disagree: β = -0.593, 95%CI was -1.166 to -0.019, P = 0.043), and getting psychological support for patients from family members (disagree: β = 1.293, 95%CI was 0.426 to 2.159, P = 0.003), family members' satisfaction (disagree: β = -0.981, 95%CI was -1.431 to -0.531, P = 0.000).
Conclusions: ICU nurses in China have realized that open visitation policy has positive effect on patients' early rehabilitation, willing to live and satisfaction; meanwhile, this policy may need more improvement in many ways such as healthcare-associated infection control, disinfection and isolation, allocation of human resources and time spent treating and caring for patients.