ICU Families’ Experience With Consultation-Based Palliative Care: A Qualitative Analysis

Introduction: Patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) are often in critical and unstable conditions with significant uncertainty. Their families also face complex challenges, including surrogate decision making. However, the application of palliative care in the ICU, which typically focuses on acute treatment, is rare, and family support is particularly limited. This study aimed to explore the experiences of ICU families who participated in a consultation-based palliative care intervention designed to support their decision-making and emotional needs.


Methods: From July 2024 to July 2025, eleven family members of patients who received a consultation-based palliative care intervention—including family counselling, facilitated family meetings, and interdisciplinary consultation—were recruited from an emergency intensive care unit at a tertiary hospital in Korea. Semi-structured, one-on-one interviews invited families to reflect on the challenges they encountered and the support they received during the intervention. The collected data were then analyzed using thematic analysis.


Results: The analysis revealed three main themes and ten sub-themes. The first theme, “ICU Family Challenges,” emerged from sub-themes of insufficient information, communication barriers with the ICU team, helplessness and emotional pain, and decisional conflict in surrogate decision-making. “Perceptions of ICU Palliative Care” was derived from sub-themes of feeling that the PC team served as a bridge between the ICU team and families, providing family centered care and offering services that were distinct and satisfactory. Finally, “Benefits of Palliative Care” was drawn from sub-themes of sustaining and empowering families, better communication with the ICU team, and practical problem-solving.


Conclusions: Families perceived consultation-based palliative care as a meaningful source of support throughout their ICU journey, particularly in easing decision-making burdens, facilitating communication, and enhancing emotional well-being. These findings suggest that integrating palliative care into standard ICU workflows can be beneficial and emphasize the importance of institutional support for long-term adoption.