Background
Family involvement improves patient outcomes after surgery and is important for the family´s well-being. Attitudes to family involvement in care among health care professionals influence how families are treated and cared for. We therefore aimed to describe these attitudes, held by nurses and medical doctors, working in the open-heart surgical care context.
Methods
A mixed-methods convergent parallel design was applied. A questionnaire with scaled and open-ended questions generated a qualitative (n=206) and a quantitative (n=267) dataset from nurses. In parallel with this data collection, qualitative interviews with medical doctors (n=20) generated a second qualitative dataset. Data were analyzed separately and thereafter merged into mixed-methods concepts using a side-by-side joint display. Meta-inferences of the concepts convergence and divergence were discussed and presented in a visual side-by-side joint display.
Results
Seven categories from the qualitative results were merged with the inference of statistical results into four mixed-methods concepts: Supporting, informing and improving care, Caring for the family, Impairing care and Depending on the situation. Out of these concepts, presenting interprofessional attitudes to family involvement in open-heart surgical care, two were convergent and two divergent.
Conclusion
The side-by-side joint display was useful in both the integration and presentation of meta-inference. Even though attitudes, as described by nurses and medical doctors, are foremost positive, the importance of family involvement in open-heart surgical care depends on the situation.