When Distance is an Act of Love: Exploring the Use of Video Diaries for Family Members of Intensive Care Patients

Due to Covid-19, intensive care (ICU) patients are not allowed visitors or have severely restricted visiting. After being admitted to ICU most patients are unconscious or extremely weak and therefore cannot speak on a phone or video call to a family member. Before these visiting restrictions, family members of patients admitted to ICU as a result of being critically ill were already known to suffer significant psychological distress and may now face increased distress given they are unable to visit a loved one.

Previous research demonstrates that keeping a paper diary has been found to be helpful for ICU patients and families. When lockdown measures were announced, NHS Scotland introduced video diaries as an emergency measure to try to support communication with families and reduce distress. vCreate is an NHS Trusted secure video messaging service that helps patients, families and clinical teams stay connected throughout their care journey. The use of video diaries may have a positive impact for family members but there is a risk that they could also have negative effects for some people. There is a need to explore both ICU healthcare professionals and family members' experiences of using video diaries. At the same time it is also important to test the feasibility and acceptability of measures of distress and psychological well-being on family members during and after their experience of video diaries. In doing so, some initial recommendations about video diaries can be made and a larger subsequent study planned to test their effect on family members and healthcare professionals.