Improved understanding of the patient's perspective on the care provided leads to increased staff satisfaction and motivation. Care encounters over the phone are common today for nurses and their well-being at work is beneficial for both themselves and the care they provide and thereby for the patients.

The nurses in the study had a positive experience with motivational interviewing, which can contribute to the increased use, adaption and development of motivational interviewing among primary healthcare professionals. Increased motivational interviewing knowledge and skills would also contribute to promotion of health lifestyle practices.

There is little documented knowledge about what is supportive from the perspective of relatives with a critically ill next-of-kin in the intensive care unit (ICU). The aim of the present study was to generate a theoretical understanding of what relatives experience as supportive when faced with the situation of having an adult next-of-kin admitted to critical care. The study was designed using a grounded theory methodology. Interviews were conducted with 29 adult relatives of adult ICU patients in southwest Sweden. Relatives described the need to be empowered and that support was needed to enable them to use both internal and external resources to cope with having a next-of-kin in critical care. To achieve empowerment, the relatives described the need to trust in oneself, to encounter charity and to encounter professionalism. The findings can contribute understanding and sensitivity to the situation of the relatives as well as indicating what form social support should take. It is essential that healthcare professionals understand how important it is for relatives to have control over their vulnerable situation and that they also reflect upon how they would like to be treated themselves in a similar situation. Recommendations for future practice are presented.

No abstract