Overcome

Abstract

In the Intensive Care Units (ICU) patients are exposed to many, continuous and highly stressors, such as medical alarms, which contribute to the development of psychological issues, such as delirium, anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). These psychological issues have a negative influence on the patients’ healing process and dramatically reduce the quality of life during and after ICU. Medical alarms are meaningful signals that inform nurses and lead them to properly act to attend patients’ basic needs and medical treatments. However, medical alarms are not meant for patients who lack resources to cope with them. Due to their ambiguity, alarms are perceived as a threat and appraised as dangerous by patients. Nurses are the main resource for patients to cope with such a threat. Nurses have the information needed by patients to reduce their uncertainty and stress provoked by such a stressor; therefore, lack of support contributes to the risks of developing psychological issues. Designing solutions that aim to reduce the risks of developing psychological disorders during the period of hospitalization in the ICU is necessary to facilitate the people healing process and to guarantee them an improved quality of life during and after such an experience. Overcome is a feedback interface designed to enable nurses to communicate by a distance with patients to reduce the risks of developing a state of anxiety when a medical alarm goes off. Through the provision of feedback, Overcome informs patients about the nurses’ decisions over medical alarms while they are approaching the room thus restoring the perceived sense of safety. Information about the decisions made by nurses over an alarm, as well as information regarding the reason for an alarm, promote medical alarms understanding and reduce the uncertainty of dying that patients can experience when exposed to ambiguous alarms and when they have to wait longer than expected before receiving the nurses' support. Feedback reassure the patients and positively influencing their state of anxiety; also, a reduced state of anxiety may also result in reduced stress levels.