. 2022 Oct:71:154050.

doi: 10.1016/j.jcrc.2022.154050. Epub 2022 May 4.

Variation in communication and family visiting policies in intensive care within and between countries during the Covid-19 pandemic: The COVISIT international survey

Alexis Tabah¹, Muhammed Elhadi², Emma Ballard³, Andrea Cortegiani⁴, Maurizio Cecconi⁵, Takeshi Unoki⁶, Laurą Galarza⁷, Regis Goulart Rosa⁸, Francois Barbier⁹, Elie Azoulay¹⁰, Kevin B Laupland¹¹, Nathalie Ssi Yan Kai¹², Marlies Ostermann¹³, Guy Francois¹⁴, Jan J De Waele¹⁵, Kirsten Fiest¹⁶, Peter Spronk¹⁷, Julie Benbenishty¹⁸, Mariangela Pellegrini¹⁹, Louise Rose²⁰; COVISIT contributors

Collaborators, Affiliations

Collaborators

COVISIT contributors:
Mahesh Ramanan²¹, Rachel Bailey²², Irmgard E Kronberger²³, Anis Cerovac²⁴, Wendy Sligl²⁵, Jasminka Peršec²⁶, Eddy Lincango-Naranjo²⁷, Nermin Osman²⁸, Yousef Tanas²⁹, Yomna Dean²⁹, Ahmed Mohamed Abbas³⁰, Mohamed Gamal Elbahnasawy³¹, Eslam Mohamed Elshennawy³², Omar Elmandouh³³, Fatima Hamed Ahmed³⁴, Despoina Koulenti³⁵, Ioannis Tsakiridis³⁶, Mohan Gurjar³⁷, Marilaeta Cindryani³⁸, Ata Mahmoodpoor³⁹, Hogir Imad Rasheed Aldawoody⁴⁰, Francesco Zuccaro⁴¹, Pasquale Iozzo⁴², Mariachiara Ippolito⁴³, Yukiko Katayama⁴⁴, Tomoki Kuribara⁴⁵, Satoko Miyazaki⁴⁶, Asami Nakayama⁴⁷, Akira Ouchi⁴⁸, Hideaki Sakuramoto⁴⁹, Mitsuhiro Tamoto⁵⁰, Toru Yamada⁵¹, Hashem Abdulaziz Abu Serhan⁵², Saqr Ghaleb Ghassab Alsakarneh⁵³, Zhannur Kaligozhin⁵⁴, Dmitriy Viderman⁵⁵, Lina Karout⁵⁶, Mohd Shahnaz Hasan⁵⁷, Andee Dzulkarnaen Zakaria⁵⁸, Silvio A Ñamendys-Silva⁵⁹, Lajpat Rai⁶⁰, Antonio Thaddeus R Abello⁶¹, Pedro Povoa⁶², Dana Tomescu⁶³, Evgeniy Drozdov⁶⁴, Alberto Orejas Gallego⁶⁵, Ursula M Jariod-Ferrer⁶⁶, Bernardo Nuñez-Garçia⁶⁷, Ahmed Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed⁶⁸, Abram Raymon Moneer George⁶⁹, Marie-Madlen Jeitziner⁷⁰, Kemal Tolga Saracoglu⁷¹, Arda Isik⁷², Abdullah Tarik Aslan⁷³, Tomasz Torlinski⁷⁴

Affiliations

¹ Intensive Care Unit, Redcliffe Hospital, Metro North Hospital and Health services, Queensland, Australia; Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia; Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Electronic address: a.tabah@uq.edu.au.
² Faculty of Medicine, University of Tripoli, Tripoli, Libya.
³ QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
⁴ Department of Surgical, Oncological and Oral Sciences (Di.Chir.On.S.), University of Palermo, Italy; Department of Anesthesia, Intensive Care and Emergency, Policlinico Paolo Giaccone, Palermo, Italy.
⁵ Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Units, Humanitas Research Hospital, Milan, Italy; Humanitas University, Milan, Italy.
⁶ Department of Acute and Critical Care Nursing, School of Nursing, Sapporo City University, Sapporo, Japan.
⁷ Department of Intensive Care, Hospital General Universitario de Castellon, Castellon de la Plana, Spain.
⁸ Intensive Care Unit, Hospital Moinhos de Vento, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
⁹ Médecine Intensive - Réanimation Hôpital de la Source - CHR Orléans, Orléans, France.
¹⁰ Médecine Intensive et Réanimation, Groupe FAMIREA, Hôpital Saint-Louis, Université de Paris, Paris, France.
¹¹ Department of Intensive Care Services, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Brisbane, Australia; Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
¹² Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
¹³ Department of Critical Care & Nephrology, King's College London, Guy's & St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom.
¹⁴ Division of Scientific Affairs, Research, European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, Brussels, Belgium.
¹⁵ Department of Critical Care Medicine, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium; Division of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
¹⁶ Departments of Critical Care Medicine, Community Health Sciences, Psychiatry, O'Brien Institute for Public Health, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
¹⁷ Departments of Intensive Care Medicine, Gelre Hospitals, Albert Schweitzerlaan, Apeldoorn, the Netherlands.
¹⁸ Intensive Care Trauma, Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.
¹⁹ Intensive Care Unit, AnOpIVA, Akademiska sjukhuset, Uppsala, Sweden; Hedenstierna Laboratory, Department of Surgical Science, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
²⁰ Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, King's College London, London, UK; Critical Care and Lane Fox Clinical Respiratory Physiology Research Centre, Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
²¹ Intensive Care Units, Caboolture and Prince Charles Hospitals, Queensland, Australia; School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Australia; The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney, Australia; University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
²² Intensive Care Outreach, Caboolture Hospital, Caboolture, QLD, Australia.
²³ Medical University Innsbruck, Department of Visceral, Transplant and Thoracic Surgery, Anichstrasse 35, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
²⁴ General Hospital Tešanj, Department for Gynecology and Obstetrics, Bosnia and Herzegovina; School of Medicine, Department for Anatomy, University of Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
²⁵ Critical Care Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Adjunct Appointment, School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Canada.
²⁶ Clinical Department of Anesthesiology, Reanimatology and Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospital Dubrava, Zagreb, Croatia; Croatian Society of Intensive Care Medicine, Croatia.
²⁷ Hospital Vozandes Quito, Quito, Ecuador.
²⁸ Medical Statistics, Medical Research Institute, Alexandria University, Egypt; United Nations System Staff College Intern-UNITAR, Egypt; Member of the Royal Statistical Association, Egypt.
²⁹ Alexandria University Main Hospital, Egypt.
³⁰ Assiut University, Egypt; Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
³¹ Tanta University Faculty of Medicine, Egypt.
³² Kafr Elshikh University Hospital, Egypt.
³³ Alexandria University Hospital, Egypt.
³⁴ Faculty of Medicine Alkasr Alainy, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.
³⁵ 2nd Critical Care Department, Attikon University Hospital, Athens, Greece.
³⁶ Third Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
³⁷ Department of Critical Care Medicine, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Rae Bareli Road, Lucknow, UP 226014, India.
³⁸ ICU IRD Sanglah, Indonesia.
³⁹ Anesthesiology, Iran; Research Deputy of Faculty of Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran; Director of ICU Program, Iran.
⁴⁰ Khanaqin General Hospital, Iraq.
⁴¹ Medico Chirurgo - Anestesia e Rianimazione, Responsabile U.O.S. Coordinamento Aziendale Trapianti d'Organo E Tessuti, Italy.
⁴² Department of Anesthesia Intensive Care and Emergency, Policlinico Paolo Giaccone, Palermo, Italy.
⁴³ Department of Surgical Oncological and Oral Science (Di.Chir.On.S.), University of Palermo, Italy; Department of Anesthesia Intensive Care and Emergency, Policlinico Paolo Giaccone, Palermo, Italy.
⁴⁴ Nursing Department, Sakakibara Memorial Hospital, Fuchu, Japan.
⁴⁵ School of Nursing, Sapporo City University, Sapporo, Japan.
⁴⁶ Nursing Department, Tokai University Hospital, Isehara, Japan.
⁴⁷ Nursing Department, Dokkyo Medical University Hospital, Mibu, Japan.
⁴⁸ College of Nursing, Ibaraki Christian University, Omika, Japan.
⁴⁹ School of Nursing, Japanese Red Cross Kyushu International College of Nursing, Munakata, Japan.
⁵⁰ Nursing Department, University of Kyoto Hospital, Kyoto, Japan.
⁵¹ Nursing Department, Toho University Omori Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.
⁵² Jordan Hospitals, Jordan.
⁵³ Al-Balqa' Applied University, Jordan.
⁵⁴ National Research Center for Oncology and Transplantation, Astana, Kazakhstan.
⁵⁵ Nazarbayev University School of Medicine, National Research Oncology Center, Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
⁵⁶ American University of Beirut Medical Center, Lebanon.
⁵⁷ UMMC, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
⁵⁸ School of Medical Sciences & Hospital, Universiti Sains, Malaysia.
⁵⁹ Division of Pulmonary, Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico City, Mexico.
⁶⁰ Dow University of Health Sciences Karachi, Pakistan.
⁶¹ The Medical City Clark, Mabalacat, Pampanga, Philippines.
⁶² NOVA Medical School, New University of Lisbon, Portugal.
⁶³ Anesthesia and Intensive Care, "Carol Davila "University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Romania; Anesthesiology & Intensive Care Dept 3, Fundeni Clinical Institute, Sos Fundeni 258 sect 2 zip, 22328, Bucharest, ROMANIA.
⁶⁴ Siberian State Medical University, Tomsk, Russia.
⁶⁵ Hospital Universitario Severo Ochoa, Leganés, Madrid, Spain.
⁶⁶ Miguel Servet University Hospital, Zaragoza, Spain.
⁶⁷ University Hospital Parc Taulí de Sabadell, Spain.
⁶⁸ Gadarif Teaching Hospital, Sudan.
⁶⁹ Soba University Hospital, Sudan.
⁷⁰ Department of Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospital Bern (Inselspital), University of Bern, Freiburgstrasse 4, 3010 Bern, Switzerland.
⁷¹ Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Health Sciences University, Kartal Dr Lutfi Kirdar City Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
⁷² General Surgery, Division of General Surgery,School of Medicine, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Kadıkoy/Istanbul, Turkey.
⁷³ Department of Internal Medicine, Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey.
⁷⁴ Anaesthetics - University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Mindelsohn Way, Edgbaston, UK.

PMID: 35525226
PMCID: PMC9067300
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrc.2022.154050

Variation in communication and family visiting policies in intensive care within and between countries during the Covid-19 pandemic: The COVISIT international survey

Alexis Tabah et al. J Crit Care. 2022 Oct.

. 2022 Oct:71:154050.

doi: 10.1016/j.jcrc.2022.154050. Epub 2022 May 4.

Authors

Collaborators

COVISIT contributors:
Mahesh Ramanan²¹, Rachel Bailey²², Irmgard E Kronberger²³, Anis Cerovac²⁴, Wendy Sligl²⁵, Jasminka Peršec²⁶, Eddy Lincango-Naranjo²⁷, Nermin Osman²⁸, Yousef Tanas²⁹, Yomna Dean²⁹, Ahmed Mohamed Abbas³⁰, Mohamed Gamal Elbahnasawy³¹, Eslam Mohamed Elshennawy³², Omar Elmandouh³³, Fatima Hamed Ahmed³⁴, Despoina Koulenti³⁵, Ioannis Tsakiridis³⁶, Mohan Gurjar³⁷, Marilaeta Cindryani³⁸, Ata Mahmoodpoor³⁹, Hogir Imad Rasheed Aldawoody⁴⁰, Francesco Zuccaro⁴¹, Pasquale Iozzo⁴², Mariachiara Ippolito⁴³, Yukiko Katayama⁴⁴, Tomoki Kuribara⁴⁵, Satoko Miyazaki⁴⁶, Asami Nakayama⁴⁷, Akira Ouchi⁴⁸, Hideaki Sakuramoto⁴⁹, Mitsuhiro Tamoto⁵⁰, Toru Yamada⁵¹, Hashem Abdulaziz Abu Serhan⁵², Saqr Ghaleb Ghassab Alsakarneh⁵³, Zhannur Kaligozhin⁵⁴, Dmitriy Viderman⁵⁵, Lina Karout⁵⁶, Mohd Shahnaz Hasan⁵⁷, Andee Dzulkarnaen Zakaria⁵⁸, Silvio A Ñamendys-Silva⁵⁹, Lajpat Rai⁶⁰, Antonio Thaddeus R Abello⁶¹, Pedro Povoa⁶², Dana Tomescu⁶³, Evgeniy Drozdov⁶⁴, Alberto Orejas Gallego⁶⁵, Ursula M Jariod-Ferrer⁶⁶, Bernardo Nuñez-Garçia⁶⁷, Ahmed Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed⁶⁸, Abram Raymon Moneer George⁶⁹, Marie-Madlen Jeitziner⁷⁰, Kemal Tolga Saracoglu⁷¹, Arda Isik⁷², Abdullah Tarik Aslan⁷³, Tomasz Torlinski⁷⁴

Affiliations

¹ Intensive Care Unit, Redcliffe Hospital, Metro North Hospital and Health services, Queensland, Australia; Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia; Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Electronic address: a.tabah@uq.edu.au.
² Faculty of Medicine, University of Tripoli, Tripoli, Libya.
³ QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
⁴ Department of Surgical, Oncological and Oral Sciences (Di.Chir.On.S.), University of Palermo, Italy; Department of Anesthesia, Intensive Care and Emergency, Policlinico Paolo Giaccone, Palermo, Italy.
⁵ Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Units, Humanitas Research Hospital, Milan, Italy; Humanitas University, Milan, Italy.
⁶ Department of Acute and Critical Care Nursing, School of Nursing, Sapporo City University, Sapporo, Japan.
⁷ Department of Intensive Care, Hospital General Universitario de Castellon, Castellon de la Plana, Spain.
⁸ Intensive Care Unit, Hospital Moinhos de Vento, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
⁹ Médecine Intensive - Réanimation Hôpital de la Source - CHR Orléans, Orléans, France.
¹⁰ Médecine Intensive et Réanimation, Groupe FAMIREA, Hôpital Saint-Louis, Université de Paris, Paris, France.
¹¹ Department of Intensive Care Services, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Brisbane, Australia; Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
¹² Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
¹³ Department of Critical Care & Nephrology, King's College London, Guy's & St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom.
¹⁴ Division of Scientific Affairs, Research, European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, Brussels, Belgium.
¹⁵ Department of Critical Care Medicine, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium; Division of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
¹⁶ Departments of Critical Care Medicine, Community Health Sciences, Psychiatry, O'Brien Institute for Public Health, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
¹⁷ Departments of Intensive Care Medicine, Gelre Hospitals, Albert Schweitzerlaan, Apeldoorn, the Netherlands.
¹⁸ Intensive Care Trauma, Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.
¹⁹ Intensive Care Unit, AnOpIVA, Akademiska sjukhuset, Uppsala, Sweden; Hedenstierna Laboratory, Department of Surgical Science, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
²⁰ Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, King's College London, London, UK; Critical Care and Lane Fox Clinical Respiratory Physiology Research Centre, Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
²¹ Intensive Care Units, Caboolture and Prince Charles Hospitals, Queensland, Australia; School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Australia; The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney, Australia; University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
²² Intensive Care Outreach, Caboolture Hospital, Caboolture, QLD, Australia.
²³ Medical University Innsbruck, Department of Visceral, Transplant and Thoracic Surgery, Anichstrasse 35, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
²⁴ General Hospital Tešanj, Department for Gynecology and Obstetrics, Bosnia and Herzegovina; School of Medicine, Department for Anatomy, University of Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
²⁵ Critical Care Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Adjunct Appointment, School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Canada.
²⁶ Clinical Department of Anesthesiology, Reanimatology and Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospital Dubrava, Zagreb, Croatia; Croatian Society of Intensive Care Medicine, Croatia.
²⁷ Hospital Vozandes Quito, Quito, Ecuador.
²⁸ Medical Statistics, Medical Research Institute, Alexandria University, Egypt; United Nations System Staff College Intern-UNITAR, Egypt; Member of the Royal Statistical Association, Egypt.
²⁹ Alexandria University Main Hospital, Egypt.
³⁰ Assiut University, Egypt; Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
³¹ Tanta University Faculty of Medicine, Egypt.
³² Kafr Elshikh University Hospital, Egypt.
³³ Alexandria University Hospital, Egypt.
³⁴ Faculty of Medicine Alkasr Alainy, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.
³⁵ 2nd Critical Care Department, Attikon University Hospital, Athens, Greece.
³⁶ Third Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
³⁷ Department of Critical Care Medicine, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Rae Bareli Road, Lucknow, UP 226014, India.
³⁸ ICU IRD Sanglah, Indonesia.
³⁹ Anesthesiology, Iran; Research Deputy of Faculty of Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran; Director of ICU Program, Iran.
⁴⁰ Khanaqin General Hospital, Iraq.
⁴¹ Medico Chirurgo - Anestesia e Rianimazione, Responsabile U.O.S. Coordinamento Aziendale Trapianti d'Organo E Tessuti, Italy.
⁴² Department of Anesthesia Intensive Care and Emergency, Policlinico Paolo Giaccone, Palermo, Italy.
⁴³ Department of Surgical Oncological and Oral Science (Di.Chir.On.S.), University of Palermo, Italy; Department of Anesthesia Intensive Care and Emergency, Policlinico Paolo Giaccone, Palermo, Italy.
⁴⁴ Nursing Department, Sakakibara Memorial Hospital, Fuchu, Japan.
⁴⁵ School of Nursing, Sapporo City University, Sapporo, Japan.
⁴⁶ Nursing Department, Tokai University Hospital, Isehara, Japan.
⁴⁷ Nursing Department, Dokkyo Medical University Hospital, Mibu, Japan.
⁴⁸ College of Nursing, Ibaraki Christian University, Omika, Japan.
⁴⁹ School of Nursing, Japanese Red Cross Kyushu International College of Nursing, Munakata, Japan.
⁵⁰ Nursing Department, University of Kyoto Hospital, Kyoto, Japan.
⁵¹ Nursing Department, Toho University Omori Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.
⁵² Jordan Hospitals, Jordan.
⁵³ Al-Balqa' Applied University, Jordan.
⁵⁴ National Research Center for Oncology and Transplantation, Astana, Kazakhstan.
⁵⁵ Nazarbayev University School of Medicine, National Research Oncology Center, Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
⁵⁶ American University of Beirut Medical Center, Lebanon.
⁵⁷ UMMC, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
⁵⁸ School of Medical Sciences & Hospital, Universiti Sains, Malaysia.
⁵⁹ Division of Pulmonary, Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico City, Mexico.
⁶⁰ Dow University of Health Sciences Karachi, Pakistan.
⁶¹ The Medical City Clark, Mabalacat, Pampanga, Philippines.
⁶² NOVA Medical School, New University of Lisbon, Portugal.
⁶³ Anesthesia and Intensive Care, "Carol Davila "University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Romania; Anesthesiology & Intensive Care Dept 3, Fundeni Clinical Institute, Sos Fundeni 258 sect 2 zip, 22328, Bucharest, ROMANIA.
⁶⁴ Siberian State Medical University, Tomsk, Russia.
⁶⁵ Hospital Universitario Severo Ochoa, Leganés, Madrid, Spain.
⁶⁶ Miguel Servet University Hospital, Zaragoza, Spain.
⁶⁷ University Hospital Parc Taulí de Sabadell, Spain.
⁶⁸ Gadarif Teaching Hospital, Sudan.
⁶⁹ Soba University Hospital, Sudan.
⁷⁰ Department of Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospital Bern (Inselspital), University of Bern, Freiburgstrasse 4, 3010 Bern, Switzerland.
⁷¹ Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Health Sciences University, Kartal Dr Lutfi Kirdar City Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
⁷² General Surgery, Division of General Surgery,School of Medicine, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Kadıkoy/Istanbul, Turkey.
⁷³ Department of Internal Medicine, Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey.
⁷⁴ Anaesthetics - University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Mindelsohn Way, Edgbaston, UK.

PMID: 35525226
PMCID: PMC9067300
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrc.2022.154050

Abstract

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, intensive care units (ICU) introduced restrictions to in-person family visiting to safeguard patients, healthcare personnel, and visitors.

Methods: We conducted a web-based survey (March-July 2021) investigating ICU visiting practices before the pandemic, at peak COVID-19 ICU admissions, and at the time of survey response. We sought data on visiting policies and communication modes including use of virtual visiting (videoconferencing).

Results: We obtained 667 valid responses representing ICUs in all continents. Before the pandemic, 20% (106/525) had unrestricted visiting hours; 6% (30/525) did not allow in-person visiting. At peak, 84% (558/667) did not allow in-person visiting for patients with COVID-19; 66% for patients without COVID-19. This proportion had decreased to 55% (369/667) at time of survey reporting. A government mandate to restrict hospital visiting was reported by 53% (354/646). Most ICUs (55%, 353/615) used regular telephone updates; 50% (306/667) used telephone for formal meetings and discussions regarding prognosis or end-of-life. Virtual visiting was available in 63% (418/667) at time of survey.

Conclusions: Highly restrictive visiting policies were introduced at the initial pandemic peaks, were subsequently liberalized, but without returning to pre-pandemic practices. Telephone became the primary communication mode in most ICUs, supplemented with virtual visits.

Keywords: COVID-19; Family; Intensive care; Restriction; Visiting.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

**Fig. 1**
Visiting policies before COVID-19, at peak, and at time of survey timepoints according to the COVID-19 status of the patients. Footnotes: Times represent the total duration allowed for in-person visiting each day.

**Fig. 2**
Reasons for non-adherence to restrictive in-person visiting policies. Footnotes: Reasons why visitors may be allowed to visit or allowed for longer time periods despite restrictions.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

1. Queensland Government Chief Health Officer Public Health Directions. 2021. https://www.health.qld.gov.au/system-governance/legislation/cho-public-h... accessed 29/11/2021.
1. Fiest K.M., Krewulak K.D., Hiploylee C., Bagshaw S.M., Burns K.E.A., Cook D.J., et al. An environmental scan of visitation policies in Canadian intensive care units during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Can J Anaesth. 2021:1–11. doi: 10.1007/s12630-021-02049-4. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
1. Mistraletti G., Giannini A., Gristina G., Malacarne P., Mazzon D., Cerutti E., et al. Why and how to open intensive care units to family visits during the pandemic. Crit Care. 2021;25(1):191. doi: 10.1186/s13054-021-03608-3. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
1. Boulton A.J., Jordan H., Adams C.E., Polgarova P., Morris A.C., Arora N. Intensive care unit visiting and family communication during the COVID-19 pandemic: a UK survey. J Intens Care Soc. 2021;17511437211007779 doi: 10.1177/17511437211007779. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
1. Phua J., Weng L., Ling L., Egi M., Lim C.M., Divatia J.V., et al. Intensive care management of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): challenges and recommendations. Lancet Respir Med. 2020;8(5):506–517. doi: 10.1016/s2213-2600(20)30161-2. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Actions

MeSH terms

Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources
Medical
- MedlinePlus Health Information

Save citation to file

Email citation

Add to Collections

Add to My Bibliography

Your saved search

Create a file for external citation management software

Your RSS Feed

Variation in communication and family visiting policies in intensive care within and between countries during the Covid-19 pandemic: The COVISIT international survey

Collaborators

Affiliations

Variation in communication and family visiting policies in intensive care within and between countries during the Covid-19 pandemic: The COVISIT international survey

Authors

Collaborators

Affiliations

Abstract

Figures

References

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Medical