. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Oct 1.

Published in final edited form as: Chest. 2008 Oct;134(4):835–843. doi: 10.1378/chest.08-0235

Table 2.

Additional Communication Components Shown to be Associated With Increased Quality of Care, Decreased Family Psychological Symptoms, or Improved Family Ratings of Communication

Conduct family conference within 72 h of ICU admission³⁸,³⁹
Identify a private place for communication with family members¹⁶
Provide consistent communication from different team members¹⁶
Increase proportion of time spent listening to family rather than talking⁴¹
Empathic statements⁴³
	Statements about the difficulty of having a critically ill loved one
	Statements about the difficulty of surrogate decision making
	Statements about the impending loss of a loved one
Identify commonly missed opportunities³⁶
	Listen and respond to family members
	Acknowledge and address family emotions
	Explore and focus on patient values and treatment preferences
	Explain the principle of surrogate decision making to the family (the goal of surrogate decision making is to determine what the patient would want if the patient were able to participate)
	Affirm nonabandonment of patient and family⁴⁴
Assure family that the patient will not suffer⁴²
Provide explicit support for decisions made by the family⁴²