How assisted eating becomes a caring practice in institutional settings: Embodied gestures and stages of assisted eating.

Assisted eating is a basic caring practice and the means through which many individuals receive adequate nutrition. Research in this area has noted the challenges of helping others to eat while upholding their independence, though has yet to explicate how this caring practice is achieved in detail and across the lifespan. This paper provides an empirical analysis of assisted eating episodes in two different institutions, detailing the processes through which eating is collaboratively achieved between two persons. Data are video-recorded episodes of infants during preschool lunches and care home meals for adults with dementia, both located in Sweden. Using EMCA's multimodal interaction analysis, three core stages of assisted eating and their underpinning embodied practices were identified: (1) establishing joint attention, (2) offering the food, and (3) transferring food into the mouth. The first stage is particularly crucial in establishing the activity as a collaborative process. The analysis details the interactional practices through which assisted eating becomes a joint accomplishment using a range of multimodal features such as eye gaze, hand gestures, and vocalisations. The paper thus demonstrates how assisted eating becomes a caring practice through the active participation of both caregiver and cared-for person, according to their needs. The analysis has implications not only for professional caring work in institutional settings but also for the detailed analysis of eating as an embodied activity.

Assessment of Spiritual Care Practices Among Nurses Caring for Cancer Patients in a Tertiary Hospital in Nigeria.

Introduction: The importance of spirituality in health and wellness has been documented in the literature. While the developed countries have reported robust evidence of spirituality in nursing practices, there is scant evidence in low- and middle-income countries like Nigeria. Objectives: This study assessed the spiritual care practices of the nurses attending to cancer patients in a tertiary health institution in Ilorin. It further determined factors associated with spiritual caring practices among nurses. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted between November 2021 and December 2021 to assess spiritual care practices among nurses caring for cancer patients. During the study period, 66 nurses were recruited randomly from the hospital's medical and surgical clinics, palliative care department, and Obstetrics and Gynecology department. Twelve items validated Nurses' spiritual care practices questionnaire was adapted for this study. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 23. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 36.5 years ( + 10.1) while female respondents made up 83.3%. About 48% of the nurses had good spiritual caring practices while 52% had poor spiritual caring practices. Nurses with training in oncology (96%) with p = .001 and those with spirituality training (86.2%) with p = .017 showed significant association with spiritual care practices. This study concluded that spiritual care practices among nurses are sub-optimal with training as a significantly associated factor with spiritual care practices. Conclusion: It is, therefore, suggested that spiritual care practices should be incorporated into all nursing training and curriculum. This will allow them to better support the spiritual needs of the patients, especially those with chronic diseases like cancer.

Improvised use of a digital tool for social interaction in a Norwegian care facility during the COVID-19 pandemic: an exploratory study.

BACKGROUND: Digital tools for social communication have been deployed in care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate social connectedness between older people and their next of kin in a safe manner. This study explores how and why health care professionals facilitate the ad hoc and prompt use of a technology for social communication, known as KOMP, in care facilities in western Norway to promote communication and social engagement among residents and their next of kin during the crisis. METHODS: To investigate the perspectives and practices of health care professionals, we conducted focus groups, individual interviews, and participant observation in public short- and long-term care facilities in western Norway. An explorative investigation with inductive content analysis was applied to analyse interview transcripts and fieldnotes from participant observation. RESULTS: The resulting qualitative data reveal that prompt implementation of interactive technology to cope with social distancing during the pandemic added new routines to the staff workload. Using this interactive technology entailed new forms of collaborative work among residents, next of kin, health care professionals and technology facilitators. Additionally, the staff articulated a sense of responsibility towards using KOMP as a meaningful and practical tool for social communication in an extraordinary period of reduced social contact. CONCLUSIONS: Improvised implementation of KOMP as an interactive technology shapes work routines, introduces new tasks and creates additional responsibilities. Despite creative efforts by health care staff, however, using KOMP remains constrained by the physical and cognitive abilities of its users. We suggest that health care managers ask a deceptively simple question when introducing novel technologies in health care contexts, namely: what kind of invisible work do these devices entail?

Time to care - An ethnographic study of how temporal structuring affects caring relationships in clinical nursing.

This article explores how temporal structuring of clinical activities affects nurses' establishment of caring relationships with patients, based on an ethnographic study in a Norwegian cancer ward in January-June 2017. By drawing on practice-based perspectives on time and care, the article shows how 'medical time', 'patient time' and 'hospital time' represent three distinct but interconnected clinical rhythms affecting caring relationships. In this way, the article provides insights into how caring relationships are established in nurses' intermediate role as temporal agents, accommodation various temporal structures associated with the biomedical and person-centred care models. Second, it contributes insights into how caring practices are temporally structured and reproduced in a hospital context. Finally, the article describes factors that influence different ways of structuring time, emphasising the need for temporal reflexivity and flexibility in meeting patients' care needs, and the role time to care plays in facilitating this.

Práticas e crenças maternas sobre cuidado e estimulação de bebês prematuros e a termo / Maternal practices and beliefs about primary care and stimulation of preterm and term babies

O objetivo do estudo foi descrever e comparar práticas parentais e crenças sobre desenvolvimento de 23 mães de bebês nascidos prematuros de muito baixo peso e de 23 mães de bebês nascidos a termo. Os dados sociodemográficos foram coletados em uma entrevista inicial e foi aplicada a "Escala de crenças parentais e práticas de cuidado na primeira infância" (E-CPPC). Os dados obtidos indicaram que na dimensão Cuidados Primários não houve diferença estatisticamente significativa entre os grupos quanto às práticas, mas houve diferenças considerando as crenças. Para a dimensão Estimulação, as mães de bebês prematuros a realizam em maior frequência do que as mães dos bebês a termo, mas acham menos importante fazê-las. Ou seja, mostram-se informadas a respeito de cuidado e estimulação e como fazê-la, entretanto, parece que não entenderam a sua importância. Os dados sugerem que no serviço de intervenção precoce aprendem a estimular seu bebê, mas não porque fazê-lo.

The aim of the study was to describe and compare practices and parental beliefs about development of 23 mothers of premature babies with very low weight and 23 mothers of term infants. Sociodemographic data were collected in an initial interview and the "Parental beliefs and care practices in early childhood" scale (E-CPPC) was applied. The data indicated that in the Primary Care dimension there was no statistically significant difference between the groups regarding the practices, but there were differences considering the beliefs. For the Stimulation dimension, mothers of preterm infants perform it more frequently than the mothers of full-term babies, but find it less important to do so. That is, they are informed about care and stimulation and how to do it, however, it seems that they did not understand its importance. Os dados sugerem que no serviço de intervenção precoce aprendem a estimular seu bebê, mas não porque fazê-lo.

Older People Negotiating Independence and Safety in Everyday Life Using Technology: Qualitative Study.

BACKGROUND: Due to demographic changes with an aging population, there is a demand for technology innovations in care services. However, technology innovations have proven difficult to implement in regular use. To understand the complexity of technology innovations in care practices, we need a knowledge base of the complex and diverse experiences of people interacting with established technologies. OBJECTIVE: This paper addresses the research gap in relation to understanding the microcontext of co-production of care involving established technologies integrated into care practices. The paper also aims to provide a framework for exploring what really happens when different actors use technology in care practices. METHODS: Participant observations and 22 interviews with actors using social alarms were conducted employing the critical incident technique. A stepwise deductive-inductive analysis was then performed. RESULTS: The results reveal how co-production of care assumes different meanings according to how actors use the technology. The results also show how technology innovation changes the dynamics between the actors and rearranges care practices. Independent and safe living is co-produced through performing bricolages and optimizing practice. Additionally, this opens up for unexpected results and bricolages as an integrated part of technology innovations. CONCLUSIONS: This study illustrates how care services are always co-produced between the actors involved. By using aspects from science and technology studies, this paper provides a framework for exploring technology in use in care practices. The framework provides tools to unpack and articulate the process of co-producing services.

Construção e validade da Escala de Crenças Parentais e Práticas de Cuidado (E-CPPC) na primeira infância / Construction and validation of the Parenting Beliefs and Caring Practices Scale for the early childhood

O presente estudo teve como objetivo construir e validar uma escala de crenças parentais e práticas de cuidado na primeira infância para o contexto brasileiro. Após a construção teórica dos itens, a versão final da escala foi aplicada em dois estudos com populações distintas (estudo preliminar – 250 mães; estudo final – 600 mães), visando avaliar a frequência de comportamento e o grau de importância atribuído às práticas. Para as análises psicométricas, foram realizadas: análise fatorial e o cálculo da consistência interna. Em ambos os estudos a análise fatorial resultou em dois fatores, sendo o primeiro denominado “cuidados primários” e o segundo “estimulação”. Os alfas de Cronbach apresentaram-se satisfatórios, variando de 0,68 a 0,83. Os resultados do estudo demonstraram a validade e precisão da escala, a qual poderá ser utilizada em futuras pesquisas, bem como em práticas de intervenção familiar, principalmente durante os primeiros anos de vida das crianças(AU)

This study aimed to develop and validate a scale of parenting beliefs and caring practices in the early childhood in Brazilian contexts. After the theoretical construction of items, the final version of the scale was administered in two studies with different samples of mothers (preliminary study N=250; final study N=600), assessing the frequency of each behavior and the degree of importance attributed to the practices. The psychometric analyses used for the validation of the scale were: factorial analysis and calculation of internal consistency. In both studies, the factorial analysis resulted in two factors: the first was called “primary care” and the second “stimulation”. The Cronbach's coefficient properties were satisfactory, ranging from .68 to .83. The results demonstrated the validity and reliability of the scale, which can be used for future studies and intervention practices with families, especially during children’s early years(AU)

Construção e validade da Escala de Crenças Parentais e Práticas de Cuidado (E-CPPC) na primeira infância / Construction and validation of the Parenting Beliefs and Caring Practices Scale for the early childhood

O presente estudo teve como objetivo construir e validar uma escala de crenças parentais e práticas de cuidado na primeira infância para o contexto brasileiro. Após a construção teórica dos itens, a versão final da escala foi aplicada em dois estudos com populações distintas (estudo preliminar – 250 mães; estudo final – 600 mães), visando avaliar a frequência de comportamento e o grau de importância atribuído às práticas. Para as análises psicométricas, foram realizadas: análise fatorial e o cálculo da consistência interna. Em ambos os estudos a análise fatorial resultou em dois fatores, sendo o primeiro denominado “cuidados primários” e o segundo “estimulação”. Os alfas de Cronbach apresentaram-se satisfatórios, variando de 0,68 a 0,83. Os resultados do estudo demonstraram a validade e precisão da escala, a qual poderá ser utilizada em futuras pesquisas, bem como em práticas de intervenção familiar, principalmente durante os primeiros anos de vida das crianças.

This study aimed to develop and validate a scale of parenting beliefs and caring practices in the early childhood in Brazilian contexts. After the theoretical construction of items, the final version of the scale was administered in two studies with different samples of mothers (preliminary study N=250; final study N=600), assessing the frequency of each behavior and the degree of importance attributed to the practices. The psychometric analyses used for the validation of the scale were: factorial analysis and calculation of internal consistency. In both studies, the factorial analysis resulted in two factors: the first was called “primary care” and the second “stimulation”. The Cronbach's coefficient properties were satisfactory, ranging from .68 to .83. The results demonstrated the validity and reliability of the scale, which can be used for future studies and intervention practices with families, especially during children’s early years.