Older people's and relatives' experiences in acute care settings: systematic review and synthesis of qualitative studies
Older people's and relatives' experiences in acute care settings: systematic review and synthesis of qualitative studies
Objective: to explore older people's and their relatives’ views on and experiences of acute health care.
Design: systematic procedures were used for study selection and data extraction and analysis. A comparative thematic approach to synthesis was taken with a number of features adopted from the literature on meta-ethnography.
Data sources: worldwide grey and published literature written in English between January 1999 and June 2008 identified from databases: CINAHL, Medline, British Nursing Index, EMBASE Psychiatry, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, PsychINFO, and AgeInfo.
Review methods: we conducted a systematic review and synthesis of qualitative studies describing older patients’ and/or their relatives’ experiences of care in acute hospital settings. 42 primary studies and 1 systematic review met the inclusion criteria.
Results: a number of themes emerged. The quality of technical care is often taken for granted by older patients, and good or bad experiences are described more in terms of relational aspects of care. Older patients in hospital may feel worthless, fearful or not in control of what happens, especially if they have impaired cognition, or communication difficulties. Three key features of care consistently mediated these negative feelings and were linked to more positive experiences: “creating communities: connect with me”, “maintaining identity: see who I am” and “sharing decision-making: include me”.
Conclusion: these findings highlight the perspectives of older people and their relatives on the delivery of personalized and dignified care in acute settings. They lend support to previous calls for relationship-centred approaches to care and provide a useful experience-based framework for practice for those involved in care for older people
aged, aged 80 and over, ospitals, human dignity, professional–patient relations, qualitative research
89-107
Bridges, J.
57e80ebe-ee5f-4219-9bbc-43215e8363cd
Flatley, Mary
7b35d87b-0646-4a24-bc74-cebd626284eb
Meyer, Julienne
c4fc2052-b132-4749-9df3-41f012d7e90f
January 2010
Bridges, J.
57e80ebe-ee5f-4219-9bbc-43215e8363cd
Flatley, Mary
7b35d87b-0646-4a24-bc74-cebd626284eb
Meyer, Julienne
c4fc2052-b132-4749-9df3-41f012d7e90f
Bridges, J., Flatley, Mary and Meyer, Julienne
(2010)
Older people's and relatives' experiences in acute care settings: systematic review and synthesis of qualitative studies.
International Journal of Nursing Studies, 47 (1), .
(doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2009.09.009).
(PMID:19854441)
Abstract
Objective: to explore older people's and their relatives’ views on and experiences of acute health care.
Design: systematic procedures were used for study selection and data extraction and analysis. A comparative thematic approach to synthesis was taken with a number of features adopted from the literature on meta-ethnography.
Data sources: worldwide grey and published literature written in English between January 1999 and June 2008 identified from databases: CINAHL, Medline, British Nursing Index, EMBASE Psychiatry, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, PsychINFO, and AgeInfo.
Review methods: we conducted a systematic review and synthesis of qualitative studies describing older patients’ and/or their relatives’ experiences of care in acute hospital settings. 42 primary studies and 1 systematic review met the inclusion criteria.
Results: a number of themes emerged. The quality of technical care is often taken for granted by older patients, and good or bad experiences are described more in terms of relational aspects of care. Older patients in hospital may feel worthless, fearful or not in control of what happens, especially if they have impaired cognition, or communication difficulties. Three key features of care consistently mediated these negative feelings and were linked to more positive experiences: “creating communities: connect with me”, “maintaining identity: see who I am” and “sharing decision-making: include me”.
Conclusion: these findings highlight the perspectives of older people and their relatives on the delivery of personalized and dignified care in acute settings. They lend support to previous calls for relationship-centred approaches to care and provide a useful experience-based framework for practice for those involved in care for older people
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Published date: January 2010
Keywords:
aged, aged 80 and over, ospitals, human dignity, professional–patient relations, qualitative research
Organisations:
Health Sciences
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 175619
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/175619
ISSN: 0020-7489
PURE UUID: b6de39b2-881c-4745-b9e4-2a121feda1a4
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Date deposited: 25 Feb 2011 09:03
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:57
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Author:
Mary Flatley
Author:
Julienne Meyer
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