Visiting policies in the adult intensive care units: a complete survey of Dutch ICUs

Abstract

Objectives: Treatment in an intensive care unit (ICU) is not only very stressful for the patient but also for the family as well. An open visiting policy, defined as a policy that imposes no restrictions on visiting hours, duration of visits and/or number of visitors, seems to fit very well both patient and family needs. The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the current situation of Dutch ICUs visiting policies.

Design: Nationwide, telephone-based questionnaire survey.

Participants: (Head)nurses of all ICUs.

Results: The results of this study show that none of the ICUs have an open visiting policy, defined as a policy that imposes no restrictions on visiting time, duration of visits and/or number of visitors. The majority of the Dutch ICUs (85.7%) has restricted visiting policies. Responses were obtained from 100% of the ICUs.

Conclusion: Despite several international guidelines, research and literature about unrestricted visiting hours on the ICUs, none of the ICUs in this study operates with such a visiting policy. If we take these results into account then the question rises if ICUs are aware of these patients and family needs on the ICUs.