Dataset Information

Exploration of home care nurse's experiences in deprescribing of medications: a qualitative descriptive study.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

The aim of this study is to explore the barriers and enablers of deprescribing from the perspectives of home care nurses, as well as to conduct a scalability assessment of an educational plan to address the learning needs of home care nurses about deprescribing.

Methods

This study employed an exploratory qualitative descriptive research design, using scalability assessment from two focus groups with a total of 11 home care nurses in Ontario, Canada. Thematic analysis was used to derive themes about home care nurse's perspectives about barriers and enablers of deprescribing, as well as learning needs in relation to deprescribing approaches.

Results

Home care nurse's identified challenges for managing polypharmacy in older adults in home care settings, including a lack of open communication and inconsistent medication reconciliation practices. Additionally, inadequate partnership and ineffective collaboration between interprofessional healthcare providers were identified as major barriers to safe deprescribing. Furthermore, home care nurses highlighted the importance of raising awareness about deprescribing in the community, and they emphasised the need for a consistent and standardised approach in educating healthcare providers, informal caregivers and older adults about the best practices of safe deprescribing.

Conclusion

Targeted deprescribing approaches are important in home care for optimising medication management and reducing polypharmacy in older adults. Nurses in home care play a vital role in medication management and, therefore, educational programmes must be developed to support their awareness and understanding of deprescribing. Study findings highlighted the need for the future improvement of existing programmes about safer medication management through the development of a supportive and collaborative relationship among the home care team, frail older adults and their informal caregivers.

SUBMITTER: Sun W

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6538031 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Exploration of home care nurse's experiences in deprescribing of medications: a qualitative descriptive study.

Sun Winnie W Tahsin Farah F Barakat-Haddad Caroline C Turner Justin P JP Haughian Cheryl Reid CR Abbass-Dick Jennifer J

BMJ open 20190524 5

<h4>Objectives</h4>The aim of this study is to explore the barriers and enablers of deprescribing from the perspectives of home care nurses, as well as to conduct a scalability assessment of an educational plan to address the learning needs of home care nurses about deprescribing.<h4>Methods</h4>This study employed an exploratory qualitative descriptive research design, using scalability assessment from two focus groups with a total of 11 home care nurses in Ontario, Canada. Thematic analysis wa ...[more]

PMID: 31129579

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Project description:INTRODUCTION:An ageing population has become an urgent concern for Asia in recent times. In nursing homes, polypharmacy has also become a compounding issue. Deprescribing practice is an evidence-based strategy to provide a better outcome in this group of patients; however, its implementation in nursing homes is often challenging, and prospective outcome data on deprescribing practice in the elderly is lacking. Our study assesses the implementation of team-care deprescribing to understand the benefits of this practice in geriatric setting and to explore the factors affecting deprescribing practice. METHODS AND ANALYSIS:This multicentre prospective study consists of a prestudy interview questionnaire, and a preintervention and postintervention study to be conducted in the nursing home setting on residents at least 65 years old and on five or more medications. We will employ a cluster randomised stepped-wedge interventional design, based on a five-step (reviewing, checking, discussion, communication and documentation) team-care deprescribing practice coupled with the use of a deprescribing guide (consisting of Beers and STOPP criteria, as well as drug interaction checking), to assess the health and pharmacoeconomic outcome in nursing homes' practice. Primary outcome measures of the intervention will consist of fall risks using a fall risk assessment tool. Other outcomes assessed include fall rates, pill burden including number of pills per day, number of doses per day and number of medications prescribed. Cost-related measures will include the use of cost-benefit analysis, which is calculated from the medication cost savings from deprescribing. For the prestudy interview questionnaire, findings will be analysed qualitatively using thematic analysis. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:This study is approved by the Domain Specific Review Board of National Healthcare Group, Singapore (2016/00422) and Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (2016-1430-7791). The study findings shall be disseminated in international conferences and peer-reviewed publications. The study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02863341), Pre-results.

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Project description:BACKGROUND:The work of specialized palliative care (SPC) teams is often challenged by substantial amounts of time spent driving to and from patients' homes and long distances between the patients and the hospitals. OBJECTIVE:Video consultations may be a solution for real-time SPC at home. The aim of this study was to explore the use of video consultations, experienced by patients and their relatives, as part of SPC at home. METHODS:This explorative and qualitative study included palliative care patients in different stages and relatives to use video consultations as a part of their SPC between October 2016 and March 2017. Data collection took place in the patients' homes and consisted of participant observations followed by semistructured interviews. Inclusion criteria consisted of patients with the need for SPC, aged more than 18 years, who agreed to participate, and relatives wanting to participate in the video consultations. Data were analyzed with Giorgi's descriptive phenomenological methodology. RESULTS:A number of patients (n=11) and relatives (n=3) were included and, in total, 86 video consultations were conducted. Patients participating varied in time from 1 month to 6 months, and the number of video consultations per patient varied from 3 to 18. The use of video consultations led to a situation where patients, despite life-threatening illnesses and technical difficulties, took an active role. In addition, relatives were able to join on equal terms, which increased active involvement. The patients had different opinions on when to initiate the use of video consultations in SPC; it was experienced as optional at the initiating stage as well as the final stage of illness. If the video consultations included multiple participants from the SPC team, the use of video consultations could be difficult to complete without interruptions. CONCLUSIONS:Video consultations in SPC for home-based patients are feasible and facilitate a strengthened involvement and communication between patients, relatives, and SPC team members.

Project description:BackgroundRecent studies indicate inadequate nutritional care practices in healthcare institutions and identify several barriers to perform individualized nutritional care to older persons. Organisation of care can become rigid and standardised, thus failing to be respectful of and responsive to each person's needs and preferences. There is limited research exploring health professionals' views on how structure of care allows them to individualize nutritional care to older persons. In this study we aim to explore how healthcare professionals' experience providing individualised nutritional care within the organisational frames of acute geriatric hospital care and home care.MethodsSemi-structured interviews with 23 healthcare professionals from hospital acute geriatric care and home care. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis.ResultsTwo main themes and six sub-themes emerged from the material. Theme 1: 'Meeting patients with complex nutritional problems' with the sub-themes: 'It is much more complex than just not eating' and 'seeing nutrition as a part of the whole'. Theme 2: 'The structure of the nutritional care', with the sub-themes: 'Nutritional routines: Much ado, but for what?', 'lack of time to individualize nutritional care', 'lack of interdisciplinary collaboration in nutritional care' and 'meeting challenging situations with limited resources in home care'.ConclusionsThe healthcare professionals described having a high focus on and priority of nutritional care when caring for older persons. They did however find it challenging to practice individualized nutritional care due to the complexity of the patients' nutritional problems and constraints in the way nutritional care was organised. By describing the challenges the healthcare professionals face when trying to individualize the nutritional care, this study may provide important knowledge to health professionals and policy makers on how to decrease the gap between older patients' preferences for care and nutritional care practice.

Dataset Information

Exploration of home care nurse's experiences in deprescribing of medications: a qualitative descriptive study.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Exploration of home care nurse's experiences in deprescribing of medications: a qualitative descriptive study.

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