| dc.description.abstract | Abstract
Background: There are signals that patients have limited involvement in nursing documentation (ND). However, patient involvement in the ND is known to increase both the quality of care and patient satisfaction. Moreover health care professionals, like nurses, are obligated by law to give patients access to their health record.
Aim: To gain insight in the experiences and the challenges home-care nurses face regarding the involvement of patients in ND and to explore which strategies home-care nurses use to deal with these challenges.
Design: A qualitative interview design.
Methods: Individual, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Dutch home-care nurses. The inclusion criteria were: being a registered nurse, currently working in home-care and using an Electronic Health Record. Interviews were conducted and analysed in an iterative process, using the principles of thematic analyses.
Results: Twelve nurses were interviewed, data was only saturated on the first research question.
The general themes mentioned are mutual trust and fitting the individual situation. This customized fit is based on the nurses’ assessment of the patient and the phase of the nursing process. Nurses involve patients in various ways and experience challenges in formulating the progress report, involving patients in the handover and the access of elderly patients in the electronic patient portal.
Conclusion: Nurses involve patients in ND in different ways varying on the phase of the nursing process and the assessment the nurse makes of the patient. Different challenges are mentioned which make involvement difficult. It is recommended to undertake action to abate these challenges.
Recommendations: Future research should focus on the challenges nurses face and how they are dealing with those challenges. Furthermore, research should focus on the experiences of patients to gain a broad view on patient involvement in ND in home care. | |
