28 Aug 07

Personal experiences of intensive care from not only patients but also their friends and family can now be heard online on DIPEx, the award-winning patient website based on Oxford University research.

DIPEx is an online resource for the general public, health professionals and researchers that is based on one-to-one interviews with people about their experiences of specific health issues. The new collection, Family and close friends' experiences of intensive care, developed out of a previous DIPEx study on Patients' experiences of intensive care.

Visitors to the website can see and hear 38 people talking about what happened when their friend or relative went into an intensive care unit (ICU). Participants talked openly to Dr Suman Prinjha, the researcher at DIPEx responsible for the project, about being told of the illness or accident, seeing the patient in ICU, waiting for updates from doctors, and how they felt when the patient was in ICU and then back home recovering. Some relatives also talked about death and bereavement.

Those interviewed are from different age groups and different social, ethnic and geographical backgrounds, and their relatives or friends had been admitted to the ICU for a diversity of reasons. Visitors to the site can see video, audio and written excerpts that have been carefully chosen from each interview.

The research and one-on-one interviews behind the website was conducted by the DIPEx Research Group, based at Oxford's Department of Primary Health Care.

The project was conceived because being admitted to an ICU has a huge impact not only on patients, who may be unconscious or sedated at the time, but also on their relatives. ICU patients can take up to two years to recover completely and relatives or close friends often become their main carers.

Dr Prinjha said: 'Being told, often completely out of the blue, that someone you love has a life-threatening illness or injury is shocking and traumatic. There is very little accessible information or support for the family and friends of ICU patients either when they are dealing with the trauma of what has happened or later when they are caring for the patient at home. The DIPEx project on Family and close friends' experiences of intensive care should be a useful resource for carers, patients and healthcare professionals who want to know more about what matters to relatives at different stages of the ICU patient's illness and recovery.'