Anxiety and family needs of the relatives of cardiac medical-surgical ICU patients.

The purpose of this study was to seek information on the perceived needs of family members visiting a patient in a critical care unit (ICU) of two hospitals located in Sudbury, Ontario. The sample included fifty-one family members visiting cardiovascular surgical patients (CVS) and forty-four family members visiting cardiovascular medicine patients (CVM). The study was part of a larger project conducted on a convenience sample of 166 subjects visiting an ICU patient. Data was gathered using a self-report questionnaire, the Critical Care Family Needs Inventory (CCFNI) (Molter and Leske, 1983), and Spielberger's (1983) State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Information was also collected about worries, knowledge, spiritual needs and the distance of subjects' residence from the site of hospitalization. The sample for both groups was predominantly female. The State Anxiety Scale of the STAI yielded mean scores for both groups which were significantly higher than those obtained by Spielberger (1983) (CVS: z = -3.28, p less than .0001; CVM: z = -3.41, p less than .0001).