Introduction:

From the perspective of humanizing care in the Intensive Care Unit, the importance of paying more attention to the patient's family members and include them in the dynamics of the unit has become evident. The objective of the study was to understand the relationship between the nursing professional of the Adult Intensive Care Unit and the relatives, from the perspective of the latter and to elaborate a theoretical approach that describes their construction process.

Materials and methods:

The study was developed under the qualitative approach of research and the tradition of grounded theory. 26 interviews were conducted with relatives of patients hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit and 100 hours of participant observation between July 2017 and July 2019. The analysis of the information was made based on the proposal of Strauss and Corbin for the grounded theory.

Results:

A central category was identified, the nurse-family relationship, towards empathic understanding, with four subcategories: relationship forms, the professional ideal, empathic understanding, the construction of a professional relationship based on interaction, communication and information; and the barriers in the nursing-family relationship.

Conclusions:

The nurse-family relationship is based on empathic understanding and has three central pillars, interaction, communication and information, since they promote understanding and favor the creation of empathetic and trusting relationships, which contributes to the humanization of the professional care.

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