AbstractThe intubated patients have difficulty in expressing their needs and desires during mechanical ventilation that leads to dissatisfaction and feeling of negativism. Although there now exist many kinds of simple augmentative tools that can efficiently improve communication between patients and caregivers, these tools are not used and ignored in most of the health care settings. This study suggests the use of the communication board to increase the communication pattern among intubated patients, through which the needs of the patients can be identified and met. The objectives of the study were to assess the effect of the communication board on communication pattern among intubated patients in medical intensive care unit and to find out the association between communication pattern and selected demographic variables among intubated patients in JIPMER. The study adopted was Non-randomized pre-test post-test design. The sample size was 50 intubated patients. All the intubated patients who met the inclusion criteria were selected by convenient sampling technique. The tools used for data collection were (i) A Questionnaire to collect demographic variables such as age, sex, educational status, occupation and indication for intubation, (ii) rating scale to assess the level of communication pattern of intubated patients which was derived by the investigator and (iii) Modified Vidatak Communication Board. The level of the communication pattern score in pre-test was, all intubated patients had poor (100%) communication pattern before using communication board. In posttest, the level of communication pattern was 32 (64%) intubated patients had average communication pattern and 18 (36%) had good communication pattern after using communication board and none had poor communication pattern. The association between communication pattern and demographic variables was done using ANOVA and independent‘t’ test, which showed that there was no significant association between the communication pattern and the demographic variables. This study emphasizes the use of the communication board for intubated patients to improve their communication pattern.
Keywords: Mechanical Ventilation; Communication; Intensive Care Unit; Intubated Patient.