Postanesthesia care unit visitation decreases family member anxiety

Despite advocacy by professional nursing organizations, no randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have evaluated the response of family members to a visit with an adult patient during a postanesthesia care unit (PACU) stay. Therefore, the purpose of this RCT was to evaluate the impact of a brief PACU visitation on the anxiety of family members. The study was conducted in a phase I PACU of a large community-based hospital. Subjects were designated adult family members or significant others of an adult PACU patient who had undergone general anesthesia. A pretest-posttest RCT design was used. The dependent variable was the change in anxiety scores of the visitor after seeing his or her family member in the PACU. Student t test (unpaired, two tailed) was used to determine if changes in anxiety scores (posttest score-pretest score) were different for the PACU visit and no visit groups. A total of 45 participants were studied over a 3-month period, with N=24 randomly assigned to a PACU visit and N=21 assigned to usual care (no PACU visit). Participants in the PACU visit group had a statistically significant (P=.0001) decrease in anxiety after the visitation period (-4.11±6.4); participants in the usual care group (no PACU visit) had an increase in anxiety (+4.47±6.6). The results from this study support the value and importance of PACU visitation for family members.