Opposing Open Visitation

Nursing Perceptions Opposing Open Visitation

There is a substantial amount of contemporary, descriptive and qualitative literature addressing nurses’ perceptions of open visitation. Nurses’ perceptions vary from supportive to opposing. Conversely, in many of the studies reviewed, nurses generally oppose an open visitation policy. Furthermore, it was noted that many of the study participants had little, if not no, experience with open visitation. This reduces the ability to generalize the perceptions and suggests opposing perceptions of open visitation are influenced by gaps in knowledge (including practical experience) of the benefits of unrestricted family presence. The opposing perceptions identified within the literature are discussed according

Furthermore, nurses have expressed concerns that open visitation exposes vulnerable, immunocompromised patients to an increased risk of infection.2,29 However, there is a limited amount of empirical evidence to support this claim.29 Moreover, in a prospective, observational study, examining the relationship between intensive care acquired infections and visitors, Malacarne et al found that there was no evidence of the pathogenic or colonized microorganisms on the visitors (n=90) of the patients (n=20) who tested