Family Witnessed Resuscitation: Staff Opinion

Abstract BACKGROUNDSince the 1980s, the controversial issue of family presence during cardiopulmonary resuscitation has been studied, as well as to identify the perceptions, opinions and beliefs of health professionals, patients and family members, as well as to identify benefits, barriers and design training and protocols for its implementation. In 2008, Twibell et al. designed a questionnaire that measured nurses’ perceptions of Risks-Benefits and Self-Confidence in the face of Family Presence during Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation.MethodsThe objective is to adapt and validate into Spanish the Family Presence Risk-Benefit scale and Family Presence Self-Confidence scale (FPRB-FPSC) instrument by Twibell et al. For this purpose were used a questionnaire on paper and online self-administered, semi-structured, translated cross-culturally. Statistical tests were performed for the validity of the questionnaire. 541 health workers were invited to answer. The results were analysed by factor analysis with varimax rotation (maximum likelihood method), in addition to ANOVA, contingency tables and Student’s t-test to observe associations between different variables. The study was approved by the institutional review board of the Consorci Sanitari del Garraf, and by the Ethic Comitee clinical research of the Fundació Unió Catalana Hospitals.Results 237 health workers answered the survey (69% women), of whom 167 were nurses. Health care providers who have experienced CPR barely reach 13%, with the majority being men and the elderly. Regarding the invitation to the FPDR, it barely reaches 5% and regarding the willingness to include the FP in the advance directives, 66% of the health workers are in favour. Health personnel identify similar barriers and factors that favour Family Presence.The correlation between the two measured scales, FPRB-FPSC, is significant and has a moderate intensity of the relationship (r = 0.65 and α <0.001).ConclusionsThe Family Presence during Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation generates controversy in health personnel, observing a trend along with generational change, as younger professionals tend to accept the Family Presence more. The psychometric properties of the questionnaire indicate high validity and reliability. Risk-Benefit perception and trust are related to healthcare staff who consider the Family Presence beneficial.