Family Presence During Resuscitation : A Survey of Malaysian Emergency Personnel

The practice of family presence (FP) during resuscitation is gaining a foothold in Western countries but still largely not encouraged by Asian health-care personnel (HCP). This study aims to provide a Malaysian data on HCPs opinions of FP. A non-probability survey was conducted in emergency departments (EDs) of four hospitals around Malaysia. A questionnaire was designed based on previous similar surveys conducted in Singapore. All HCPs in four hospitals were included in this study which ran from October until December 2009. A total of 273 replies were obtained of which one third were doctors and the rest paramedics. It was found that 27% of doctors were more agreeable to FP compared to paramedics (p=0.001). Logistic regression of variant showed that the odds of a doctor agreeing to FP was 2.86 that of a paramedic (p-value=0.002). In conclusion, it was found that Malaysian emergency HCPs do not agree to FP. Surveys of the public may help to assess their opinions and whether it disagree with HCPs opinions.