The Effect of Telehealth Communication on Anxiety, Depression, and Visits of Family Members of COVID-19 Patients Admitted to Intensive Care Units

Background: The family’s inability to communicate with a patient with COVID-19 who was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and the lack of information about the patient’s condition greatly affected the anxiety, depression, and uncertainty of family members. Objectives: This study examined the effect of telehealth communication on anxiety, depression, and visits by family members of COVID-19 patients admitted to ICUs. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was performed on 60 family members of COVID-19 patients admitted to ICUs of medical centers affiliated with Zahedan University of Medical Sciences in 2021. The participants were selected using convenience sampling and randomly divided into intervention and control groups. In the intervention group, the patient’s condition, changes in the patient’s consciousness level, diagnostic and therapeutic measures, and the care received was reported daily for 5 days at the discretion of the family member in the form of audio and video messages. One day after the intervention, data were collected using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and analyzed with SPSS software (version 22) using the paired samples t-test, independent samples t-test, chi-square test, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Results: The results of ANCOVA showed that after the intervention, the mean score of depression and anxiety of the family caregivers of patients admitted to the ICU in the intervention group was significantly lower than that of the members of the control group (P = 0.001). Besides, the mean number of visits made by the patient’s family members in the intervention group (2.73 ± 2.04) was significantly lower than the visits made by the participants in the control group (3.96 ± 1.80) (P = 0.001). Conclusions: The study’s results showed that telehealth communication using audio and video messages reduced the level of anxiety and depression experienced by family members of patients with COVID-19 and reduced the frequency of their visits to the hospital. Thus, the use of new technologies to enable virtual hospital visits during the COVID-19 outbreak for families of ICU patients is recommended due to the restrictions caused by this disease.