Adverse events in nursing: A retrospective study of reports of patient and relative experiences.

BACKGROUND: Patient safety is an important global issue. While it is well known that patients can suffer from adverse events in nursing care, there is a lack of knowledge as to how they experience them. AIM: To examine adverse events in nursing care as they are experienced by patients and relatives. METHODS: This was a retrospective study taking both a qualitative and a quantitative approach. It was based on data regarding 242 adverse events in nursing care, as reported by patients and relatives to Sweden's Medical Responsibility Board, content analysis was used to analyse the reports. RESULTS: Patients' and relatives' experiences were analysed into four categories of adverse events, as concerning participation, clinical judgement, nursing intervention and the essentials of care. LIMITATIONS: The reports were classified by the Medical Responsibility Board, without a standardized system. The adverse events reported were few in number and were reported by patients and relatives only. CONCLUSION: Lack of participation has negative consequences and contributes to adverse events. Adverse events occur through missed care as well as through carer errors. IMPLICATIONS ON NURSING AND HEALTH PRACTICE: Nurses need to improve their skills that support patient participation. Patient participation needs to be incorporated into nurses' duties. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING AND HEALTH POLICY: Resources for patients to participate in their own care needs to be a priority underpinning policy-making in health systems. Nursing education systems need to teach students about the value and benefits of involving patients in their care.

Meanings of eating deficiencies for people admitted to palliative home care.

OBJECTIVE: Food and eating are embedded in people's everyday social lives: at home with family members and as part of social interactions. For people with progressive life-limiting conditions, however, eating is often obstructed. The objective of the present study was to explore the meanings of living with eating deficiencies at the end of life among people admitted to specialist palliative home care. METHOD: This qualitative inductive study employed an interpretive descriptive approach. A dozen persons, with various diagnoses and eating deficiencies, admitted to two specialist palliative home care units, participated. Data were collected through individual repeated interviews. Data collection and analysis were guided by the interpretive description method. RESULTS: The results reveal that eating deficiencies among people with progressive life-limiting conditions are existentially loaded markers of impending death. Finding ways to overcome declined food intake and hampered eating enabled our participants to feel able to influence their own well-being and remain hopeful. The results also showed that the eating deficiencies influenced participants' relationships and social interactions in ways that hampered their possibilities of sharing valuable moments together with friends and family members during the final period of life. SIGNIFICANCE OF RESULTS: Efforts to minimize the distress that people experience in relation to the challenges they face with eating deficiencies are important for well-being at the end of life. Person-centered approaches to acknowledge and support individuals' own ways of experiencing and dealing with their eating deficiencies are recommended that include a multidimensional perspective on food and eating.

Person-centred climate questionnaire (PCQ-S): establishing reliability and cut-off scores in residential aged care.

AIM: This study aimed to establish reliability and cut-off scores for the person-centred climate questionnaire - staff version (PCQ-S) in residential aged care. BACKGROUND: A number of tools have emerged recently to measure person-centredness, and these need psychometric evaluation and cut-off scores to enhance utilisation and interpretation. METHOD: A cross-sectional survey design was employed in a Swedish sample of residential aged care staff (n = 1237). Psychometric evaluation using Cronbach's alpha and item-total correlation was used, together with establishing cut-off scores based on quartile scores. RESULT: The PCQ-S had satisfactory psychometric properties and the following total scale cut-off scores for unit person-centredness were suggested: ≤ 49 ('well below average'), 50-56 ('below average'), 57-62 ('above average') and ≥ 63 ('well above average'). These cut-off scores were clinically meaningful as they separated the sample into four groups in which staff in more person-centred units reported significantly higher work satisfaction, social support and less stress of conscience. CONCLUSION: The PCQ-S has reliability in residential aged care samples, and cut-off scores are provided that provide important fundaments for comparative studies and aggregation of data to explore person-centredness care further. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: The study enables managers with ways to measure, interpret and compare levels of person-centredness between units and facilities for research, practice development and/or benchmarking purposes.

Implementing national guidelines for person-centered care of people with dementia in residential aged care: effects on perceived person-centeredness, staff strain, and stress of conscience.

BACKGROUND: Person-centeredness has had substantial uptake in the academic literature on care of older people and people with dementia. However, challenges exist in interpreting and synthesizing the evidence on effects of providing person-centered care, as the person-centered components of some intervention studies are unclear - targeting very different and highly specific aspects of person-centeredness, as well as not providing empirical data to indicate the extent to which care practice was actually perceived to become more person-centered post-intervention. METHODS: The study employed a quasi-experimental, one-group pre-test-post-test design with a 12-month follow-up to explore intervention effects on person-centeredness of care and the environment (primary endpoints), and on staff strain and stress of conscience (secondary endpoints). RESULTS: The intervention resulted in significantly higher scores on person-centeredness of care at follow-up, and the facility was rated as being significantly more hospitable at follow-up. A significant reduction of staff stress of conscience was also found at follow-up, which suggests that, to a larger extent, staff could provide the care and activities they wanted to provide after the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicated that an interactive and step-wise action-research intervention consisting of knowledge translation, generation, and dissemination, based on national guidelines for care of people with dementia, increased the staff self-reported person-centeredness of care practice, perceived hospitality of the setting, and reduced staff stress of conscience by enabling staff to provide the care and activities they want to provide.

Construction and psychometric evaluation of the Swedish language Person-centred Climate Questionnaire - staff version.

AIM: The aim of the study was to construct and evaluate psychometric properties of the Swedish language Person-centred Climate Questionnaire - staff version. BACKGROUND: Person-centred care is often quoted but ill defined, and the literature warrants the development of valid and reliable measurement tools. METHODS: During 2006, a questionnaire was constructed and distributed to a sample of Swedish hospital staff (n = 600). Questionnaire data was subjected to item analysis and reduction. Psychometrical properties of the questionnaire were evaluated. RESULTS: The 14-item Person-centred Climate Questionnaire showed satisfactory psychometric properties. Measures of validity were good, internal consistency was high, Cronbach's alpha was satisfactory for the total scale (0.88) and test-retest reliability was adequate. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that the staff Person-centred Climate Questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool for assessing staff perceptions of the person centredness of hospital environments. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: This instrument makes it possible to study the degree of person-centredness in relation to different organizational systems, environments, staff groups and managerial styles. In addition, staff variables such as turnover rates, health outcomes and efficacy can be related to staff perceived person centredness of the organization.

Person-centred care of people with severe Alzheimer's disease: current status and ways forward.

When caring for people with severe Alzheimer's disease (AD), the concept of the person being central is increasingly advocated in clinical practice and academia as an approach to deliver high-quality care. The aim of person-centred care, which emanates from phenomological perspectives on AD, is to acknowledge the personhood of people with AD in all aspects of their care. It generally includes the recognition that the personality of the person with AD is increasingly concealed rather than lost; personalisation of the person's care and their environment; offering shared decision-making; interpretation of behaviour from the viewpoint of the person; and prioritising the relationship as much as the care tasks. However, questions remain about how to provide, measure, and explore clinical outcomes of person-centred care. In this Review, we summarise the current knowledge about person-centred care for people with severe AD and highlight the areas in need of further research.

Associations between the working characteristics of nursing staff and the prevalence of behavioral symptoms in people with dementia in residential care.

BACKGROUND: Clinical experience suggests that the work characteristics of staff in residential care may influence the well-being of residents with dementia. However, few studies have explored those anecdotal experiences. The aim of this study was to investigate associations between work characteristics of nursing staff and prevalence of behavioral symptoms among people with dementia in residential care settings. METHODS: The self-report job strain assessment scale was used to measure staff perceptions of their working environment, and the Multi Dimensional Dementia Assessment Scale to measure the occurrence of behavioral symptoms among residents in 40 residential care units for people with dementia. RESULTS: The findings show that in settings where staff reported high job strain, the prevalence of behavioral symptoms was significantly higher compared to settings where staff reported low job strain. Furthermore, settings characterized by staff having a more positive caring climate had significantly less prevalence of escape, restless and wandering behaviors compared to settings having a less positive caring climate. There was no statistically significant association between staff members' self-reported knowledge in caring for people with dementia and prevalence of behavioral symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence for the oft-cited clinical experience that the well-being of nursing staff is associated with the well-being of people with dementia in residential care settings.

The duality in using information and communication technology in elder care.

AIM: The aim of this paper is to report a study illuminating values and perceptions held by professional carers of older people about the use of information and communication technology applications. BACKGROUND: Various information and communication technology applications have successfully been developed to help solve a variety of problems in elder care. Beside different technical barriers and the assumed negative attitudes among older people, staff values and attitudes have been found to be an important cause of resistance to change and slowness in introduction of information and communication technology in health care of older people. METHODS: An interview study was conducted in 2004 with 10 healthcare personnel with 3-26 years experience of working in home care and nursing homes in Northern Sweden. Qualitative content analysis was used to identify recurring themes in the data. RESULTS: The interpretation of values and perceptions among carers revealed a duality where the carers perceived information and communication technology as a promoter of both inhumane and humane care, a duality that seemed to make them defensive and resistant to change. Within the overall duality, other dualities were embedded that described both perceptions about the care of older people and about being a carer. There was evidence of resistance among professional carers towards an introduction of information and communication technology applications in elder care. Carers considered that the same attributes of information and communication technology that could promote humane care could also lead to dehumanized care. CONCLUSION: There should be an ethical discussion when introducing information and communication technology applications in elder care. The best caring alternative for all those concerned should be considered. It should promote aspects of wellbeing and dignity for frail older people and fears of inhumane care among carers must be recognized and discussed.

Caring or uncaring--meanings of being in an oncology environment.

AIM: This paper reports a study illuminating meanings of being in the physical environment of an oncology centre as narrated by patients, significant others and staff. BACKGROUND: The physical environment of hospitals can convey different messages. For example, landscape pictures, plants and comfortable chairs can convey positive messages, while sparsely decorated and run-down environments can convey negative values. Traditional healthcare environments may be experienced as unfamiliar, strange and alienating, fostering feelings of stress and vulnerability. The majority of research on care environments has employed experimental designs to test different environmental variables, for example sound, colour and architecture, in relation to patient outcomes such as recovery, pain and blood pressure. There is, however, little research-based understanding of the meanings of being in these environments. METHODS: A phenomenological hermeneutic approach was applied to analyse 17 interviews with patients, significant others and staff carried out during the spring of 2004 at an oncology centre in Sweden. FINDINGS: The physical environment was found to influence experiences of care in four ways: first, by being a symbol expressing messages of death and dying, danger, shame and stigma, less social value and worth; second by containing symbols expressing messages of caring and uncaring, life and death; third, by influencing interaction and the balance between being involved and finding privacy; and fourth, by containing objects that could facilitate a shift of focus away from the self: being able to escape the world of cancer, and finding light in the midst of darkness. The comprehensive understanding illuminates the physical environment as not merely a place for caring, but as an important part of caring that needs to be accounted for in nursing care. CONCLUSION: To promote well-being among patients, we need to ask ourselves if the environment imposes rather than eases suffering. Our findings also suggest the importance of not limiting our conceptions of nursing to nurse-patient relationships, but of using the therapeutic potential of the total environment in nursing care.

Being present in a distant room: aspects of teleconsultations with older people in a nursing home.

In a telecare project in Northern Sweden, videophones have been used to facilitate teleconsultations between nurses and elders at a nursing home. The authors designed this study to elucidate qualities in the communication in the professional encounter between nurses and elders assisted by nursing staff in the teleconsultations. They interviewed 2 registered nurses and 5 nursing staff members with long experience of using videophones in the telecare project, out of 20 staff members, and analyzed them using a phenomenological-hermeneutic method. In a comprehensive interpretation, teleconsultations could be understood as glimpses of the experience of being in the other's room with a feeling of providing nursing presence. This was attained when aspects such as familiarity, safety, transparency, and interest were promoted.

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.

Family members' narrated experiences of communicating via video-phone with patients with dementia staying at a nursing home.

We studied the experience of family members who communicated via video-phones with elderly demented patients who were either staying at a home for temporary respite care or living in a nursing home. The study was based on qualitative data from seven interviews. The interviewees each had three or more months' experience with a video-phone. The open interviews were transcribed. Content analysis showed that video-phone conversations made the relatives of patients at nursing homes more involved in the caring process and that conversation via the video-phone was a different way of communicating. Video-phone conversations with demented patients were in some cases more focused and of better quality than face-to-face conversations. In most cases the video-phone conversations required the assistance of staff at the home in order to be meaningful. Video-phones have the potential to become useful tools for family members caring for elderly relatives.

Video-phone communication with cognitively impaired elderly patients.

We investigated the potential role of remote interactions via video-phone in the care of the elderly. Family members and nursing staff were interviewed about their experiences of communicating with elderly people via video-phone. Seven family members and seven nursing staff participated in the studies. The interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The results showed that it was possible for elderly people with cognitive impairment to engage in remote communication when certain conditions were met. There were also indications that the video-phone interaction sometimes increased the attention and focus of the elderly subjects.

Effects of an implemented care policy on patient and personnel experiences of care.

A care policy was implemented within health care in the county of Västerbotten, Sweden. A questionnaire was administered before and after the implementation of the care policy to assess its effects. Patients within hospital care and primary health care described their experiences in a base-line study (n=3950) in 1994 and a follow-up study (n=2941) in 1996. On the same occasions personnel (n=2362 and 2310, respectively) answered the same questionnaire assessing what they thought their patients experienced. No significant positive effects of the implementation were seen by the patients. Fewer patients felt that they were understood when they talked about their problems, dared to express criticism or denied they were treated nonchalantly in the follow-up study. The experiences of the personnel were in line with those of the patients concerning nonchalant treatment in the follow-up study. Furthermore, fewer staff members thought that their patients felt they had adequate help with hygiene whilst more thought that their patients felt they were responded to in a loving way. One interpretation of the negative outcome is that organizational changes, strained resources and cuts in staffing during the 90s may have reduced the possibility of integrating the care policy in spite of an ambitious and extensive intervention.

Promoting a good life among people with Alzheimer's disease.

AIM: To illuminate the meaning of offering care and a place to live to people with Alzheimer's disease in a special care unit. RATIONALE: There is a need to gain a deeper understanding about so called 'homelike' care settings, and about how to promote experiences of being at home in residents with Alzheimer's disease. The study is part of a long-term study in a special care unit. METHODS: The study comprises phenomenological hermeneutic interpretation of interviews with 10 care providers. RESULTS: The analyses revealed a number of caring aspects such as, for example, 'viewing dignity and striving to preserve a sense of self in the resident', 'encouraging a sense of belonging', 'offering relief' and 'promoting a sense of power and control in the resident', although integrated and reflected in each other. The caring aspects constituted the themes confirmation, familiarity, communion and agency considered as dimensions of the good life. CONCLUSION: To avoid simplification in which, for example, the furniture from a certain decade become the standard for good care, it seems important to focus upon the meaning of the good life. Care that promotes a good life of people with Alzheimer's disease seemed relationship centred.

Nurse-doctor interaction in teleconsultations between a hospital and a geriatric nursing home.

The aim of the present study was to elucidate both the interaction between a doctor and five registered nurses and the problems or tasks dealt with in teleconsultations between a university clinic for geriatric medicine and a nursing home for the elderly in northern Sweden. The interaction and problems or tasks were studied through analyses of video-recorded teleconsultations and through open interviews with the participating staff. The results indicated that teleconsultations between a geriatrician and the nurses at a nursing home for the elderly can be a useful tool for providing medical services. Teleconsultations alter both the 'power-control' and 'practice spheres' for the doctor and the nurses, and must be based on mutual trust. The use of teleconsultations gives the nurse a larger role as the presenter of medical problems, and gives the doctor the role of remote consultant.

How patients with dementia spend their time in a psycho-geriatric unit.

This paper presents the findings of a work sampling study conducted at an assessment unit for patients with dementia at a university hospital in Northern Sweden. The aim of the study was to describe the activity of the demented patients' day at a psycho-geriatric unit, and to investigate the correlation between the patients' characteristics and time provided by nursing staff, in order to increase our knowledge of institutionalized demented patients situation. The sample consisted of 24 patients with dementia. The activities of patients were monitored at 10-min interval between 7.00 a.m. and 9.10 p.m. In total, 2024 activities were recorded. The findings showed that being demented and placed in a psycho-geriatric unit is a life in solitude for most of the time. The variation in time patients spent in solitude could partly be explained by their communication abilities. For patients with dementia, communion is essential for their well-being. In order to develop their well-being, it seems important to enhance our knowledge about the reasons, that influence the nursing staffs' perceptions of patients with dementia, to decrease their time in solitude.

A retrospective study of functional ability among people with dementia when admitted to group-dwelling.

OBJECTIVE: To describe functional ability among people with dementia when admitted to group-dwelling (GD) during different time periods, and the probability of their remaining in these units for the rest of their lives. DESIGN: Retrospective study of functional ability and likelihood of staying in GD. SETTING: Thirteen GD units in the Sundsvall region, Sweden. SUBJECTS: One-hundred-and-forty-two demented people admitted to GD in the period 1986-1996. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Ability to manage personal care and somatic and psychiatric status were measured with the use of a rating scale. RESULT: On comparing people over the years, a significant increase was found in the need of assistance to manage everyday life on admission to GD. The likelihood of living the rest of life in GD has increased over time. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing dependency and increasing probability of remaining in GD may influence the intention of GD as a unique way of caring for people with dementia. It is crucial to consider these changes in order to encourage the development of GD.

Factors relating to the use of physical restraints in geriatric care settings.

Physical restraints are commonly used on older persons living in geriatric care settings. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of environmental and organizational variations and resident and staff characteristics on restraint prevalence. In this cross-sectional study of 33 nursing home wards and 12 group living units for old persons with dementia in two municipalities in northern Sweden, 540 residents (mean age 82) and 529 staff members were evaluated for resident and staff characteristics and organizational and environmental variables. The proportion of residents with impaired mobility function, the number of behavioral disturbances, and nursing staff's attitudes towards use of restraints were the strongest discriminators between restraint-free wards and wards that used restraints. A classification function analysis showed that these three variables could correctly classify the wards as restraint-free, low-use, and high-use wards in 63.6% of the cases, with the highest figures for restraint-free wards (91%). This study has shown that the use of physical restraints is strongly connected with residents' functional status and nursing staffs' attitudes toward their use.