Table 1.
Components of the ICU Workbook – the decision-support intervention
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. Orientation and education about the ICU | • Provides a general overview of the intensive care unit (ICU) including key ICU terms, treatments, and roles of various clinicians who work in the ICU. • Describes common processes in the ICU, including resuscitation and comfort measures, organ donation, Power of Attorney, and substitute decision-making (SDM) • Defines commonly used vocabulary within the ICU. |
| 2. When a loved one is in the ICU | • Provides suggestions for coping strategies for family members of an ICU patient. • Encourages family member visitation. • Offers advice about how to ask questions in the ICU. • Encourages family to seek support or keep a journal during the ICU stay. |
| 3. Looking after yourself | • Reinforces the importance of self-care for families of ICU patients. • Encourages family members to sleep, eat, and maintain healthy physical activity • Provides ideas for how to inform and communicate with other family and friends about the patient’s progress. |
| 4. Making decisions in the ICU | • Describes and encourages shared decision-making. • Defines the role and responsibilities of family members in SDM. • Defines the roles of clinicians in decision-making. • Provides resources available to help with the decision-making process. |
| 5. Help us to get to know you and your family member | • Family directed questionnaire asking information about the patient’s personal characteristics. • Assesses family members’ state of mind and emotional status. • Assesses patient’s clinical status and frailty |
| 6. Informational preferences | • Identifies family member’s desire for information and level of health literacy. |
| 7. Values history tool | • Assesses patients’ values and preferences (as reported by family members). • Questionnaire helps family members articulate patient’s view of quality of life, value conflicts, impact of decisions on others, and religious/spiritual/cultural beliefs. |
| 8. Decision preferences | • Elicits family member’s preferences for extent of information sharing and preferred role in decision-making • Identifies others who should be involved in decision-making • Measures residual decisional conflict |