Scope review of human caring for patients by head nurses / 中华医院管理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the current practice of head nurses′ human caring for patients at home and abroad, and integrate those effective measures and effect evaluation methods, so as to provide reference for nursing administrators.Methods:A framework was built on the scope review method proposed by Arksey and O′Malley, and such search terms as head nurse/nursing administrator, human caring/care/human-based, sick person/patient, nursing supervisory/charge nurse/head nurse/nurse administrator/nurse manager/nurse executive, empathy/care/compassion, patient/client were used. CNKI, Wanfang database, VIP, Chinese Medical Association Journal Full-text Database, Medical Knowledge Network (PubMed, Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, OVID, EBSCO) and the Cochrane Library were searched from their initiation to November 29, 2022. Two researchers independently screened and extracted basic characteristics of the literature, as well as the measures used by the head nurses to implement human caring for patients and the effect evaluation tools.Results:A total of 57 articles were included. This paper reviewed the measures of human caring for patients at both levels of head nurses as direct caregivers and as organizers.The measures at the level of direct caregivers included implementing human caring in their ward rounds, creating a caring atmosphere, setting up a head nurse reception day, interviewing the care needs of patients and their families, innovating working methods based on the perspective of human caring, and caring communication with patients and their families; measures at the level of organizers included building a nursing human caring mode with specialist characteristics, building a human caring mode for different patient groups, strengthening the training of nurses′ human caring ability and literacy, building a caring environment and atmosphere, simplifying the nursing work process, and establishing a continuous and diversified nurse-patient communication mode, continuing human caring for discharged patients, organizing participation of nurses in social practices of human caring, setting up caring posts, and conducting care supervision and quality control. Patient satisfaction survey was used to evaluate the practical effects of human caring, but the evaluation objects were nurses or nursing services.Conclusions:Head nurses play an important role in the implementation of human caring, and a variety of measures can be taken to directly or indirectly implement human caring for patients. It is suggested to build more human caring modes to cover more specialties and patient groups, and improve the patient satisfaction evaluation tools with head nurses as the evaluation object.