Roy (2009, p. 90) stated, ‘The need for nutrition involves a series of integrated processes
associated with digestion; that is, the ingestion and assimilation of food and metabolism,
provision of energy, building of tissue, and regulation of metabolic processes’. Adequate
nutritional intake is important in maintaining body functions, healthy tissues, and body
Brigitte S. Cypress,'Patient-Family-Nurse Intensive Care Unit Experience' | 11
temperature, to promote healing, and to build resistance to infection. The nurses, patients,
and family members perceived that feeding the patients in the ICU is a vital way of providing
them with nutrition that would help in the healing process. Roy (2009) articulated that
metabolic and other nutritive needs should be met during altered means of ingestion.