[Intensive Care Unit patients' relatives' relationship in the settings of restrictive conditions]

Social distancing steps have been set during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Patients' families brought their relatives to the emergency department and did not see them again for weeks due to lockdown of the whole population. Caregivers understood and approved the restriction of visits in ICU, in order to limit epidemic spreading, worried by overwhelming of their capacity would be overwhelmed and that they would not be able to admit all the patients requiring intensive care. However, they quickly sought to compensate by creating different relationships with relatives, using new ways of communication enabling patients and their relatives to keep in touch. Letters, messages services, phone calls and e-visits were set up. This brought new risks such as patient' images diffusion on social networks. In addition, relatives, caught with contradictory stressful information provided by medias, did not always understand that they could not have a direct access to patients and put psychological pressure on healthcare providers. Considering that previous recommendations support an unrestricted access of relatives to the ICU patients, caregivers have had to deal with new rules and have got experience that will be useful in case of the occurrence of comparable events.