Nurses' and patients' communication in smoking cessation at nurse-led COPD clinics in primary health care.

BACKGROUND: Smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have high nicotine dependence making it difficult to quit smoking. Motivational interviewing (MI) is a method that is used in stimulating motivation and behavioral changes. OBJECTIVE: To describe smoking cessation communication between patients and registered nurses trained in MI in COPD nurse-led clinics in Swedish primary health care. METHODS: A prospective observational study with structured quantitative content analyses of the communication between six nurses with basic education in MI and 13 patients in non-smoking consultations. RESULTS: Only to a small extent did nurses' evoke patients' reasons for change, stimulate collaboration, and support patients' autonomy. Nurses provided information, asked closed questions, and made simple reflections. Patients' communication was mainly neutral and focusing on reasons for and against smoking. It was uncommon for patients to be committed and take steps toward smoking cessation. CONCLUSION: The nurses did not adhere to the principles of MI in smoking cessation, and the patients focused to a limited extent on how to quit smoking. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: To make patients more active, the nurses need more education and continuous training in motivational communication.

Management of COPD exacerbations in primary care: a clinical cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations are associated with lung function decline, lower quality of life, and increased mortality, and can be prevented by pharmacological treatment and rehabilitation. AIMS: To examine management including examination, treatment, and planned follow-up of COPD exacerbation visits in primary care patients and to explore how measures and management at exacerbation visits are related to subsequent exacerbation risk. METHODS: A clinical population of 775 COPD patients was randomly selected from 56 Swedish primary healthcare centres. Data on patient characteristics and management of COPD exacerbations were obtained from medical record review and a patient questionnaire. In the study population of 458 patients with at least one exacerbation, Cox regression analyses estimated the risk of a subsequent exacerbation with adjustment for age and sex. RESULTS: During a follow-up period of 22 months, 238 patients (52%) had a second exacerbation. A considerable proportion of the patients were not examined and treated as recommended by guidelines. Patients with a scheduled extra visit to an asthma/COPD nurse following an exacerbation had a decreased risk of further exacerbations compared with patients with no extra follow-up other than regularly scheduled visits (adjusted hazard ratio 0.60 (95% confidence interval 0.37 to 0.99), p=0.045). CONCLUSIONS: Guidelines for examination and emergency treatment at COPD exacerbation visits are not well implemented. Scheduling an extra visit to an asthma/COPD nurse following a COPD exacerbation may be associated with a decreased risk of further exacerbations in primary care patients.

Use of motivational interviewing in smoking cessation at nurse-led chronic obstructive pulmonary disease clinics.

AIM: This paper is a report of a study to describe to what extent Registered Nurses, with a few days of education in motivational interviewing based communication, used motivational interviewing in smoking cessation communication at nurse-led chronic obstructive pulmonary disease clinics in primary health care. BACKGROUND: For smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease the most crucial and evidence-based intervention is smoking cessation. Motivational interviewing is often used in healthcare to support patients to quit smoking. METHOD: The study included two videotaped consultations, the first and third of three at the clinic, with each of 13 smokers. Data were collected from March 2006 to April 2007. The nurses' smoking cessation communication was analysed using the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity scale. To get an impression of the consultation, five parameters were judged on a five-point Likert-scale, with five indicating best adherence to Motivational Interviewing. RESULTS: Evocation', 'collaboration', 'autonomy-support' and 'empathy' averaged between 1·31 and 2·23 whereas 'direction' scored five in all consultations. Of communication behaviours, giving information was the most frequently used, followed by 'closed questions', 'motivational interviewing non-adherent' and 'simple reflections'. 'Motivational int erviewing adherent', 'open questions' and 'complex reflections' occurred rarely. There were no important individual or group-level differences in any of the ratings between the first and the third consultations. CONCLUSION: In smoking cessation communication the nurses did not employ behaviours that are important in motivational interviewing.

Communication and self-management education at nurse-led COPD clinics in primary health care.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to explore the structure, content in communication and self-management education in patients' first consultations at nurse-led chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) clinics in primary healthcare. METHOD: Thirty consultations performed by seven registered nurses were videotaped; structure and content in the consultation was analyzed using Pendleton's Consultation Map. Nurses' self-management education was assessed from the content of the conversation: whether important and relevant information and self-management education was given, and how investigations were performed. RESULTS: Each consultation lasted for a mean time of 37.53 min. Communication about reasons for consultations concerned mainly medical and physical problems and to a certain extent patients' perceptions. Teaching about self-management and smoking cessation was of an informative nature. Two consultations ended with shared understanding, and none of the patients received an individual treatment-plan. CONCLUSION: Nurses rarely planned the consultations on an individual basis and rarely used motivational dialogue in self-management education and in smoking cessation. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The findings could be used to help nurses to reflect on how to improve the structure of the visit, self-management education, smoking cessation and patient communication.

Effects of COPD self-care management education at a nurse-led primary health care clinic.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is disabling, with symptoms such as chronic cough, phlegm, wheezing, shortness of breath and increased infections of the respiratory passage. The aim was to examine the effects of a structured educational intervention programme at a nurse-led primary health care clinic (PHCC) on quality of life (QoL), knowledge about COPD and smoking cessation in patients with COPD. This study had an experimental design in which 52 patients with COPD from a Swedish primary care setting were randomized into two groups (intervention or control). Both groups received standard care but patients in the intervention group were also offered two visits to a nurse specialized in COPD care. The purpose of the visits was to increase the patients' self-care ability and their knowledge about COPD. The study was approved by the local Research Ethics Committee. Data were collected using two questionnaires, one pertaining to knowledge about COPD and smoking habits and St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire, addressing how QoL was affected by the patients' respiratory symptoms. The intervention and control groups answered both questionnaires on their first and last visits to the PHCC. A statistically significant increase was noted in the intervention group on QoL, the number of patients who stopped smoking and patients' knowledge about COPD at the follow-up, 3-5 months after intervention. However, a confounding factor may have been that one of the researchers (Eva Osterlund Efraimsson), as a nurse in the PHCC, performed the intervention. This implies that patients were in a dependent relationship which may have affected the responses in a favourable direction. Our findings show that conventional care alone did not have an effect on patients' QoL and smoking habits. Instead, the evidence suggests that a structured programme with self-care education is needed to motivate patients for life-style changes.

How to get one's voice heard: the problems of the discharge planning conference.

AIMS: This paper reports a study describing how patients, relatives and healthcare professionals dealt with the variety of problems and responsibilities that occur in discharge planning conferences and especially how they managed to do this given the institutional frame that surrounded the meeting. BACKGROUND: In Sweden, the aim of a discharge planning conference is to co-ordinate social and healthcare resources as patients are discharged from hospitals. Patients, relatives and hospital staff, along with healthcare professionals responsible for outpatient care, assemble to achieve an individual care plan. One of the explicit principles informing the discharge planning conference is to increase patients' influence on decision-making. However, research points at shortcomings in this respect. METHOD: A discourse analysis was conducted using transcriptions of eight video-recorded discharge planning conferences. The selected patients were eight older women expected to be discharged from hospital. Other participants were staff nurses, social workers and occasionally relatives, an occupational therapist, district nurse or home care aide. FINDINGS: Participants adopted different roles as persons/patients, relative/next of kin and healthcare professionals/institutional representatives during the discharge planning conference, which they simultaneously struggled to act upon. The findings are presented under the categories 'Clashing roles and perspectives' and 'Facing the institutional frame'. CONCLUSIONS: The performance of the discharge planning conference in its present form interferes with a caring perspective that protects patients' integrity and gives prominence to their life worlds. Moreover, it does not satisfy patients' and relatives' right to expect proceedings that enhance their possibility to express their personal wishes in a dignified manner.

"They were talking about me"--elderly women's experiences of taking part in a discharge planning conference.

INTRODUCTION: Discharge planning procedures needs improving to make transition to care settings in the community smooth, safe and secure. Research about discharge planning that involves a patient perspective is limited. The intention of this study was to focus on the patients' (elderly women) experiences of taking part in discharge planning conferences (DPCs) to deepen our understanding of the meaning of facing "the world of the institution" from a life-world perspective. AIM: This study aims at describing elderly women's experience of taking part in a DPC as they are about to be discharged from hospital. METHODOLOGICAL DESIGN: To illuminate the phenomenon from a life-world perspective, an interview study was chosen. Eight follow-up interviews with seven elderly women were carried out. The interviews were analysed using a qualitative content analysis methodology. FINDINGS: The interpretation of data was that the women's future was as in suspense as they got ill or were hit by accidents. The analysis revealed four themes that reflected the women's experiences of taking part in the DPCs: Being affiliated; Being in focus, Standing outside; and finally Being unprepared. STUDY LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSION: The limitations of the study are related to: selection of participants; participation in the interview was connected to a video recording study; gap in time between participation in the DPC and the interview. The findings are still seen as trustworthy as the experiences expressed by the participating women in data are to be seen as a contribution to an emerging understanding of the meaning of the phenomenon from a life world perspective. The findings make clear that the institutional world easily and without much resistance from the patients transgresses the border of their life worlds. This awakes a need to reconsider how a caring perspective can be established in practice.

Discharge planning: "fooling ourselves?"--patient participation in conferences.

BACKGROUND: The aim of discharge planning conferences (DPCs) is to co-ordinate resources and to enhance patient involvement in care in connection with relocation from hospital. DPCs can be characterized as institutional conversations, and are often executed as standard procedures, but the scientific basis for the activity is weak. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to illuminate and describe the communication at DPCs. DESIGN: A purposeful and consecutive sample of eight DPCs was collected in which the future care of eight women, aged 70 years or more, was discussed. METHODS: Transcribed video recordings were analysed in two steps. "The initial analysis" aimed at describing the structure and content of the communication. This description constituted the basis for an interpretation, leading to "the focused analysis" aiming at finding evidence for the assumptions made in the interpretation. RESULTS: The result revealed that the participation of patients was very less the DPCs. The decisions had often already been made, and the women were expected to be pleased with the decision; institutional representatives (IRs) frequently justified their actions by referring to bureaucratic praxis. CONCLUSIONS: The women were both encouraged and excluded from participation by the IRs. This dichotomy occurred because the IRs, as professionals, struggled to simultaneously realize their caring mission and their obligation to enforce the values and rules of the institution, i.e. efficiency and rationality. Thus, IRs and patients were equally imprisoned within the institutional system. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL RESEARCH: This result illustrates how conflicting paradigms are imbedded and reproduced by healthcare professionals in their communicative praxis. Awareness of this is a prerequisite for improvements in working procedures congruent with a caring paradigm that support patient participation.

Expressions of power and powerlessness in discharge planning: a case study of an older woman on her way home.

The aim of this case study was to illuminate and describe the phenomenon of power as it appeared in a discharge planning conference. The patient was an older woman who needed long-term care as a result of stroke and heart failure. Data comprised transcriptions of a video-recorded discharge planning conference and two audio-recorded interviews focusing on the patient's experience of the discharge planning conference. The findings reveal that the content of the discharge planning conference focused on the patient's medical state and routine administrative protocols. Analysis of the participants' activities, strategies and attitudes during the conference indicate that the professional carers dominated the conversation. Analysis further reveals that the patient experienced a feeling of powerlessness and of being treated as an object. The findings are interpreted and discussed based on the concepts of 'institutional frame' and 'client's frame', derived from Agar's theory of institutional discourse.