Study Summary: 

The Society of Critical Care Medicine published guidelines for family-centered care include 24 suggestions such as providing family support in the way of family education programs. This may have beneficial effects for family caregivers in the ICU by reducing anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. A worldwide survey of the ABCDEF (Assess, Prevent and Manage Pain/Both Spontaneous Awakening Trials and Spontaneous Breathing Trials/Choice of Analgesia and Sedation/Delirium: Assess, Prevent and Manage/Early Mobility and Exercise/Family Engagement and Empowerment) bundle reports that 13% of ICUs provide booklets or training materials to improve delirium knowledge among family caregivers. This identifies an opportunity to improve patient-and family-centered outcomes by engaging and empowering families (i.e. “F” in the ABCDEF bundle) by providing family caregivers with education on the signs of delirium so they can identify, prevent and manage delirium (i.e. “D” in the ABCDEF bundle). Due to the heterogeneity of patients in an ICU and that family caregivers may be overwhelmed or in crisis as they are faced with a critical situation, each component of the educational module will be designed independently to ensure the provision of the educational module is feasible and acceptable.

Objectives: 

(1)Develop case vignettes typical of ICU patients and explore which features predict correct identification of delirium presence/absence.
(2)Develop and validate a Caregiver ICU Delirium Knowledge Questionnaire (CIDKQ).
(3)Develop and refine an educational module involving family caregivers in delirium prevention, identification and management among intensive care unit (ICU) patients, examining its feasibility and usability.
(4)Evaluate whether providing delirium education to family caregivers improves: (a) knowledge of delirium, (b) sense of self-efficacy to use of non-pharmacologic interventions to prevent delirium and be involved in delirium detection and management or (c) symptoms of depression or anxiety.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Kirsten Fiest

Study Team: Dr. Karla Krewulak, Dr. Thomas Stelfox, Israt Yasmeen, Cherri Zhang