All data has now been collected. I have
collected data on six cases. The patients
stayed in ICU from 17 to 66 days. Data was
collected throughout the patient's stay in the
ICU. I would travel to the unit weekly and
collect data over two days. For each case, I
observed the patient. I was interested in how
they interacted with the environment, their
family and the health-care professionals. I
would also conduct interviews with the family
each week to hear about their experiences as
the patient's illness progressed. Interviews
with nurses, doctors and other allied health-
care professionals were also undertaken to
understand their experiences of providing care
over time. I was able to capture clinical issues
and problems and how a patient's illness was
progressing by reviewing clinical notes.
When the patient was transferred from the
ICU to the ward and on discharge, follow-up
interviews were done with the patient and
their family. How long a patient had been dis-
charged from the ICU made a difference to the
information I could get. If I visited within a
week of discharge, patients often still had not
had time to process how sick they had been
and what had really happened to them. It was
often when they were discharged home that
they came to terms with what they had been
through and the fact they could have died as a
resuLt of their illness.
Hearing families' stories of how people deal
with a critical illness was a profound learn-
ing experience. At times, I would conduct
interviews at home with family members
during the patient's critical illness. It became
painfully obvious throughout my study that, as
health-care professionals, we often have little
understanding of the trauma and complexity
a family has to deal with, as they cope with a
family member's critical illness. The implica-
tions are huge. Hospital parking for a wife
who visited her husband every day during his
hospital stay cost more than $2000 and was
an enormous burden for the family.