| Summary: | 碩士 === 亞洲大學 === 健康管理研究所 === 95 === This is an explorative research on adults in intensive care units,
focusing in particular to the patients’ health care demands and their
satisfaction levels. The research was carried out in the middle Taiwan
Medical Centre’s intensive care unit from 1 February 2006 to 31 July
2006. Purposive sampling was used to select research subjects. A total of
188 patients were interviewed. The data collected was then analysed.
The average age of the patients were 61.77 years old. Most of the
patients were married, had past medical history, and had received some
form of invasive treatments. These patients had mid to high levels of
physical demands, and mid levels of emotional demands. The three most
highly rated concerns by these patients were: 1) respect patients’ privacy,
2) allowed visiting hours of family and friends by hospital, and 3) noise
levels in the intensive care units.
Satisfaction levels of these patients in intensive care units are mid to
low levels. These patients reported mid levels of satisfaction regarding
their psychological and physical needs, and reported mid to low levels of
satisfaction with regards to medical information received from ICU staff.
The areas reported to be of most satisfaction including family and friends
visiting hours, and nurses’ care towards patients’ hygiene.
Gender, age, marital status, number of living children, economic
status and commitment to religion, are some factors found to be
negatively related to patients’ health care demands. Educational level,
whether the patient had underwent surgery, the duration of a patient on
the ventilator support and the duration of stay in the intensive care units,
are some of the factors positively related to patients’ health care demands.
Patients’ demographics have been found to not affect their satisfaction
levels. However, the duration of being on a ventilator, duration of stay in
the intensive care unit, and the APACHEII score are negatively related to
patients’ satisfaction levels.
In general, patients who are committed to a religion have less health
care demands and are found to be less satisfied, even after other variables
have been controlled. This satisfaction level is lower than those who were
not committed to a religion. It was also found that patients in the surgical
intensive care units who have used ventilators, have higher health care
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demands and are found to be more satisfied than patients in the medical
intensive care units who had not underwent surgery and did not require
use of ventilators.
Some recommendations following the research, include improving
the design of the intensive care units, provide more privacy to patients,
more flexibility to visiting hours, reduce in noise levels, and reduction of
harsh lighting in the intensive care units. All these recommendations are
to provide a more conducive environment for patients’ recovery.
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