title: Critical care: Are we customer friendly?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Assessing and enhancing family satisfaction are imperative for the provision of comprehensive intensive care. There is a paucity of Indian data exploring family's perception of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients. We wanted to explore family satisfaction and whether it differed in families of patients admitted under intensivists and nonintensivists in our semi-open ICU.
  
  
  METHODS
  We surveyed family members of 200 consecutive patients, between March and September 2009 who were in ICU for >3 days. An internationally validated family satisfaction survey was adapted and was administered to a family member, on day 4 of the patient's stay. The survey consisted of 15 questions in five categories - patient care, medical counseling, staff interaction, visiting hours, and facilities and was set to a Likert scale of 1-4. Mean, median, and proportions were computed to describe answers for each question and category.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 515 patients were admitted during the study period, of which 200 patients stayed in the ICU >3 days. One family member each of the 200 patients completed the survey with 100% response rate. Families reported the greatest satisfaction with patient care (94.5%) and least satisfaction with visiting hours (60.5%). Chi-square tests performed for each of the five categories revealed no significant difference between satisfaction scores of intensivists and nonintensivists' patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Family members of ICU patients were satisfied with current care and communication, irrespective of whether they were admitted under intensivists or nonintensivists. Family members preferred open visiting hours policy than a time limited one.
authors.affiliation: Department of Critical Care Medicine, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: Ramesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Venkataraman
authors.affiliation: Department of Critical Care Medicine, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: Lakshmi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ranganathan
authors.affiliation: Department of Critical Care Medicine, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Rajnibala
authors.affiliation: Department of Critical Care Medicine, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: Babu K
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Abraham
authors.affiliation: Department of Critical Care Medicine, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: Senthilkumar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rajagopalan
authors.affiliation: Department of Critical Care Medicine, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: Nagarajan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ramakrishnan
keywords: Family satisfaction; intensive care; intensivist; nonintensivist