Nurses’ key role during the announcement of serious events in the ICU

La communication aussi est un travail d’équipe

Abstract

Communication with ICU patients’relatives crystallizes around the informational meetings and therefore moments of formal communication. During these meetings, the role of nurses and allied healthcare professionals, is still very often a passive one, or at best one of active listening. However, outside the walls of the meeting room, nurses play an eminently active role in communication, and more specifically in providing information to families. Beginning well before the meetings, and continuing in the room at the end of these meetings, the informal communication that is constantly woven between the nurses and the relatives of the patients constitutes a narrative thread which may or may not facilitate understanding, the experience and the trust of the patient’s relatives. The quality of this communication is directly linked to the quality of communication within the team, which needs to be taken into account, reflected on, and worked on as any other skill implemented in the ICU.