Musyoka,Jeniffer Katindi2023-10-182023-10-182023-06https://erepository.mku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/5769Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is considered as a highly specialized department of care within a hospital which offers comprehensive continuous care for patients who are severely ill and are likely to benefit from the management. It is a shocking experience for relatives to have one of their family members in the ICU as most critical ailments occur abruptly without a warning. The patient admitted into the ICU is a part of a family. As such, when one member of the family is afflicted the rest of the family is affected hence the need to provide care that is centered on the family within the ICU. The objectives guiding the study included; To explore relatives’ perceptions and experiences of the physical organization of the ML5H ICU, to determine how relatives perceived and experienced care given to their patient, to establish how relatives perceived and experienced their involvement towards care of their patient and to assess the relatives’ perceptions and experiences of their emotional support by ICU nurses. The study utilized a cross-sectional analytic design and convenience method of sampling to sample 64 relatives. The data collected was analyzed using bivariate analysis. In the study, females were the majority at 55% (n=35), 43%(n=27) were spouses,45.2% (n=29) had a college level of education, most at 42.2% (n=27), perceived the atmosphere of the unit as fair, most at 93.7% (n=60) perceived the nursing care as good/excellent, majority at 74.6% (n=45) perceived as often/always involved towards caring for their patients and most of them at 73.43% (n=47) perceived the emotional support they received as good/excellent. The study concluded that two thirds of the relatives, 0.54-0.78 at 95% confidence interval had an overall perception of having had a good/excellent experience. A significant association was found between the perceptions of the relatives on the waiting room atmosphere and their overall experience (p=0.038, CI-95%). However, their overall experience was not significantly associated with their perceptions of the atmosphere inside the unit, the nursing care given to their patients, their involvement in the care of their patients and the emotional support they were given by the ICU nurses. The study recommended the hospital management to look into the condition of the ICU waiting facility in liaison with inputs from the relatives. It further recommended that a phenomenological study should be carried out on the same to gain deeper insights into the study.en