Individualized Nursing Care and Its Predictors in Intensive Care Units: A Polish Perspective

This article reports the results of a cross-sectional study aiming to assess how critical care nurses evaluate and support their patients’ individuality and to determine how it changes in relation to different predictors. Data were obtained through an online survey with the ICN-Nurse questionnaire which was administered to a sample of Polish nurses working in a critical care setting. Data analysis included factor analysis, descriptive statistics, and linear model building. The levels of nurses’ views on how they support their patients’ individuality and for the way nurses perceive the maintenance of patients’ individuality were moderate. The significant predictors for higher scores in both outcome measures included fewer years of experience in current unit, higher evaluations of care quality, and greater job satisfaction. Even though individualized care in critical care has been globally recommended, there are still places where it has not been implemented. This study several factors related to work organization and nurse characteristics that may explain why this approach to care remains underutilized. Based on the results, nurses can reflect on how they support the individuality of their patient, as well as acknowledge and address possible barriers to this approach.