Family Members' of Coronary, Cardiosurgery and General ICU Patients Resilience, Perceived Stress, Spirituality: a Cross Sectional Analysis.

Background: Family members' of coronary, cardiosurgery and general ICU patients are psychologically burdened, shaken, experiencing negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, sadness and despair due to the severity of the disease and possible death.

Objective: To investigate family members' resilience in correlation with perceived stress and spirituality of coronary, cardiosurgery and general ICU Patients.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on a random sample of 104 family members of patients (34 men and 70 women), admitted in the coronary, cardiosurgery and general ICU for greater than 48 hours. The PSS-14 was used to assess perceived stress. Resilience was investigated using CD-RISC-25 and spirituality using DSES. Also APACHE II was used to assesses the severity of the disease and the outcome of patients admitted to the ICU.

Results: Resilience is significantly correlated with the scales of perceived stress (p <0.001) and daily spirituality (p = 0.019). On the contrary, the more their daily spirituality, the greater their resilience. In the present study no significant association was found between the DSES and the PSS-14.

Conclusion: The main findings of the present study is the significant association between resilience and spirituality and perceived stress. Therefore, it is necessary to design interventions aiming at enhancing resilience, limiting perceived stress and promoting spirituality.