An ethnographic study of human dignity in nursing practice.

BACKGROUND: The ethical values of nursing are crucial to the provision of humane care. Human dignity is a core value that must be preserved in order to deliver such care. No studies to date have compared the perceptions of nurses and/or patients regarding the components of dignified care embedded in actual clinical practice. PURPOSE: To explore the delivery of dignified care by professional nurses. This was an ethnographic qualitative study combining inductive and deductive methods to identify emergent themes. A multicenter study carried out in the internal medicine units of four hospitals in Barcelona (Spain). Convenience sampling was used to recruit nurses from the four units. SETTING AND SAMPLE: Multicenter study carried out in the internal medicine units of four hospitals in Barcelona (Spain). Convenience sampling was used to recruit nurses from the four units. METHOD: We conducted 158 hours of participant observation of 27 nurses. Semi-structured individual interviews were undertaken with 20 of these nurses, with data saturation being reached. Data were collected between September 2014 and May 2016 and were analysed using ATLAS.ti 7.2 for Windows. RESULTS: Two themes emerged from the analysis: Delivering dignified care and Factors influencing the delivery of dignified care. The nurses regarded human dignity as one of the key values of their profession. However, there was a discrepancy between their perceptions of the care they offered and what they actually did, due mainly to a lack of awareness about their own practice. Respect, confidentiality, privacy and communication were identified as the key elements underpinning dignified care. Institutional policies were seen as the major obstacle to the delivery of humane care, the key issues being frequent shift rotations, a high patient-nurse ratio and excessive paperwork. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study underline the importance of delivering dignified care and the need to ensure that nurses' attitudes and behaviours are consistent with this goal. The ethnographic approach, combining participant observation with individual interviews, revealed discrepancies between nurses' perceptions of the care they offered, or should offer, and what they actually did. This suggests a need for professional forums in which nurses can become more aware of their own clinical practice.

The impact of death and dying on nursing students: an explanatory model.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To explore nursing students' experiences of death and dying in clinical practice. BACKGROUND: The encounter with death constitutes one of the most stressful experiences reported by nursing students during their clinical training. In particular, it can be difficult for student nurses to cope with the patient's suffering, to provide postmortem care and to communicate with the patient and his/her family as death approaches. Although some research has been carried out in relation to this phenomenon, there remains a need to identify and understand the situations and experiences that are of most concern to students, those which may affect their ability to cope and, therefore, interfere with the care they are able to offer to the dying patient and his/her family. DESIGN: Qualitative descriptive and hermeneutic study. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews (n = 12) were conducted with nursing students. Data were collected in 2012-2013. Transcripts were analysed using Colaizzi's seven-step procedure. FINDINGS: The analysis identified five themes: impact, training in end-of-life care, ethical issues, coping and learning/growth/healing connections. The central theme was the enormous impact the encounter with death had, while the other themes were a response to and/or modulators of this impact. An explanatory model was derived on the basis of the relationship between all these emergent themes. CONCLUSIONS: It is essential to understand nursing students' experience of death so as to minimise its impact. The explanatory model described here could be a useful tool for the design of training programmes on end-of-life care. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Adequate training of this kind would help to ensure that future nurses offer high-quality care to patients and their families, minimising the impact of death and preventing emotional fatigue.

[Efficacy of interventions aimed at the main carers of dependent individuals aged more than 65 years old. A systematic review]. / Eficacia de las intervenciones dirigidas a cuidadores principales de personas dependientes mayores de 65 años. Una revisión sistemática.

BACKGROUND: In our environment, care of the dependent elderly is usually provided by family members, thereby ensuring autonomy and avoiding institutionalization of the dependent adult. Thirty-three percent of Spanish caregivers have acknowledged the importance of acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary for daily care. Consequently, several interventions have been developed by health professionals from distinct disciplines. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to systematically review and evaluate the efficacy of published interventions for the caregivers of dependent elderly individuals. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of the literature on interventions in the caregivers of the dependent elderly (older than 65 years old) published between 1996 and 2006. The inclusion criteria included controlled clinical trials with outcome measures related to effectiveness in reducing caregiver burden, anxiety and depression. Our search yielded 15 reports. RESULTS: The interventions produced statistically significant reductions in burden (40%), anxiety (50%) and depression (90%). Interventions requiring active participation by caregivers and those based on cognitive-behavioral therapy were more effective than those focused on knowledge acquisition. CONCLUSION: Due to the heterogeneity of caregiving interventions, evaluation of both the clinical and statistical significance of these interventions is essential. Reducing the chronic stress experienced by caregivers is difficult to achieve. Consequently, future experimental designs should take into account the needs reported by caregivers as well as promote active participation.

Eficacia de las intervenciones dirigidas a cuidadores principales de personas dependientes mayores de 65 años. Una revisión sistemática / Efficacy of interventions aimed at the main carers of dependent individuals aged more than 65 years old. A systematic review

Introducción: el cuidado de un anciano dependiente en nuestroentorno social es asumido por los miembros de su familia o cuidadoresprincipales (CP); ellos son los responsables de mantenerla autonomía del anciano y de su permanencia en el entorno familiar.El 33% de los CP españoles manifiestan la importancia deadquirir conocimientos y habilidades para el cuidado, por lo queprofesionales de la salud de distintas disciplinas han diseñadodiferentes programas de intervención.Objetivo: el propósito de este estudio fue realizar una revisiónsistemática sobre la eficacia de las intervenciones dirigidas a CPde ancianos dependientes.Material y métodos: se realizó una revisión sistemática de la literaturacientífica publicada sobre intervenciones dirigidas a CPde personas mayores de 65 años dependientes, realizadas de1996 a 2006. Los criterios de inclusión fueron: artículos primarioscon selección aleatoria grupo experimental/grupo control y queanalizaran la eficacia de la intervención sobre la sobrecarga, laansiedad o la depresión. La muestra final la compusieron 15 estudiosque cumplían los criterios de inclusión.Resultados: las intervenciones mostraron resultados estadísticamentesignificativos sobre la sobrecarga (40%), la ansiedad(50%) y la depresión (90%).Las intervenciones con participación activa de los CP y basadasen terapia cognitivo conductual fueron más eficaces que aquellascuyo contenido se centró exclusivamente en la adquisiciónde conocimientos.Conclusiones: la heterogeneidad de las intervenciones hacenimprescindible, en esta área de estudio, valorar la relevancia clínicade los resultados además de la significación estadística. Dadoque los efectos del cuidado son estresores crónicos difícilmentemodificables, en futuros estudios se debería planteardiseños experimentales, sin olvidar las necesidades expresadaspor los propios CP y promoviendo su participación activa(AU)

Background: in our environment, care of the dependent elderlyis usually provided by family members, thereby ensuring autonomyand avoiding institutionalization of the dependent adult.Thirty-three percent of Spanish caregivers have acknowledgedthe importance of acquiring the knowledge and skills necessaryfor daily care. Consequently, several interventions have been developedby health professionals from distinct disciplines.Objective: the purpose of this study was to systematically reviewand evaluate the efficacy of published interventions for the caregiversof dependent elderly individuals.Material and methods: we conducted a systematic review of theliterature on interventions in the caregivers of the dependent elderly(older than 65 years old) published between 1996 and 2006.The inclusion criteria included controlled clinical trials with outcomemeasures related to effectiveness in reducing caregiverburden, anxiety and depression. Our search yielded 15 reports.Results: the interventions produced statistically significant reductionsin burden (40%), anxiety (50%) and depression (90%).Interventions requiring active participation by caregivers andthose based on cognitive-behavioral therapy were more effectivethan those focused on knowledge acquisition. Conclusion: due to the heterogeneity of caregiving interventions,evaluation of both the clinical and statistical significance of theseinterventions is essential. Reducing the chronic stress experiencedby caregivers is difficult to achieve. Consequently, future experimentaldesigns should take into account the needs reportedby caregivers as well as promote active participation(AU)

La Enfermería y el cuidado comunitario / Nursing and community care

Las nuevas políticas sanitarias de cuidado comunitario requiere nun enfoque innovador para potenciar la promoción de la salud. Esteartículo parte de la visión propuesta por la Organización Mundialde la Salud de “Salud para Todos”. Desde la conceptualización del empoderamiento, se propone la participación de la comunidada lo largo del proceso de promoción de la salud mediante la identificaciónde problemas e intervenciones válidas para cada grupo poblacional, siempre centrándose en sus necesidades

New healthcare policies on community care require an innovative approachto enhance health promotion. This article takes the view of the WHO proposal on “Health for Every One”. From the conceptualisation of empowerment, the participation of thecommunity throughout the process of health promotion is proposedby identifying the problems and valid interventions for each populationgroup that are logically based on the needs of each group