Waiting rooms and facilities available to patients' families and visitors in Italian pediatric ICUs: a national survey

Families of critically ill patients spend a considerable amount of time in hospital, both beside their loved ones in the ICU and outside the unit waiting to visit them or to receive news. No published data are available to date on the provision of waiting rooms in Italy's pediatric ICUs (PICUs) and on the facilities available to patients' families and visitors. We investigated these aspects in the course of a national survey concerning visiting policies in Italian PICUs.