Journal of Nursing & Care

Family Centered Care in the Critical Care: Voices of Family Members

Abstract

Isabel Coetzee*

Critically ill patients and their family members experience the critical care unit as an extremely stressful environment. Patients admitted to critical care units are members of a wider patient-family network that functions as a small social network. Family-centered care (FCC) has been described as a partnership approach to health care decision-making. As a philosophy of care, FCC, and the related term patient-centered care (PCC), have been recognized by multiple medical societies, health care systems, state and federal legislative bodies, the Institute of Medicine, and Healthy People 2020 as integral to patient health, satisfaction, and health care quality.