Abstract:

The assessment on the psychological needs were conducted to 97 family relatives of 62 patients, who were admitted to the Emergency Intensive Care Unit (EICU) of Xinjiang Chest Hospital from April 2016 to May 2017 and diagnosed as tuberculous meningitis (TBM), when the patients had just been hospitalized, during the treatment and before they were discharged from the hospital. The results showed that the patients’ relatives all had serious psychological stress responses (100.0% (97/97) family members wanted to accompany the patients); the proportion of the patients’ relatives who wanted to know the knowledge of the disease was quite high (81.4% (79/97) of the family members expected to get some health education materials related to the disease while 100.0% (97/97) of the family members wanted to know the attentions after the patients were discharge from the hospital); the needs on social and economic supports were obvious in the patients’ relatives (97.9% (95/97) of them worried that the treatment of the patient might be disrupted due to financial barriers); the patients’ relatives had strong psychological needs to be concerned (100.0% (97/97) of the family members of the patients wanted the clinical doctors to be able to explain clearly and patiently about the patient’s conditions and prognosis). Medical staff should pay more attention to the psychological needs of the family members of the patients with severe TBM who were admitted to the ICU, and try to meet the needs of the severe patients’ relatives through the individualized and targeted interventions.

Key words: Tuberculosis, meningeal, Intensive care units, Proxy, Anticipation, psychological, Questionnaires, Needs assessment