A FACTOR ANALYSIS OF CARING FOR FAMILIES OF CRITICALLY ILL PATIENTS ADMITTED IN INTENSIVE CARE UNITS

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study the factor of caring for critically ill patients’ families in an intensive care unit, General Hospitals and Regional Hospitals. The sample consisted of 324

professional nurses. Who were recruited by a multistage sampling from 16 Hospitals. The research instrument was an caring for critically ill patients’ families questionnaire which was content validated by a group of experts and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was0.98. The data was factorized by Principle Component Analysis and Orthogonal Rotation with Varimax Method.

The research findings were6 major factors of caring for critically ill patients’ families: Family adaptation support, facilitation support, spiritual support, family attention, effective information and emotional support. These latent variables were measured by 59 observed variables. Family adaptation support factor had the highest direct effect on caring for critically ill patients’ families, followed by facilitation support. In addition Spiritual support, family attention, effective information and emotional support could explain the variance in caring for critically ill patients’ families for 59.45%.