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Practical Support (practical + support)
Selected AbstractsFactors associated with constructive staff,family relationships in the care of older adults in the institutional settingINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EVIDENCE BASED HEALTHCARE, Issue 4 2006Emily Haesler BN PGradDipAdvNsg Abstract Background, Modern healthcare philosophy espouses the virtues of holistic care and acknowledges that family involvement is appropriate and something to be encouraged due to the role it plays in physical and emotional healing. In the aged care sector, the involvement of families is a strong guarantee of a resident's well-being. The important role family plays in the support and care of the older adult in the residential aged care environment has been enshrined in the Australian Commonwealth Charter of Residents' Rights and Responsibilities and the Aged Care Standards of Practice. Despite wide acknowledgement of the importance of family involvement in the healthcare of the older adult, many barriers to the implementation of participatory family care have been identified in past research. For older adults in the healthcare environment to benefit from the involvement of their family members, healthcare professionals need an understanding of the issues surrounding family presence in the healthcare environment and the strategies to best support it. Objectives, The objectives of the systematic review were to present the best available evidence on the strategies, practices and organisational characteristics that promote constructive staff,family relationships in the care of older adults in the healthcare setting. Specifically this review sought to investigate how staff and family members perceive their relationships with each other; staff characteristics that promote constructive relationships with the family; and interventions that support staff,family relationships. Search strategy, A literature search was performed using the following databases for the years 1990,2005: Ageline, APAIS Health, Australian Family and Society Abstracts (FAMILY), CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Dare, Dissertation Abstracts, Embase, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Social Science Index. Personal communication from expert panel members was also used to identify studies for inclusion. A second search stage was conducted through review of reference lists of studies retrieved during the first search stage. The search was limited to published and unpublished material in English language. Selection criteria, The review was limited to studies involving residents and patients within acute, subacute, rehabilitation and residential settings, aged over 65 years, their family and healthcare staff. Papers addressing family members and healthcare staff perceptions of their relationships with each other were considered for this review. Studies in this review also included those relating to interventions to promote constructive staff,family relationships including organisational strategies, staff,family meetings, case conferencing, environmental approaches, etc. The review considered both quantitative and qualitative research and opinion papers for inclusion. Data collection and analysis, All retrieved papers were critically appraised for eligibility for inclusion and methodological quality independently by two reviewers, and the same reviewers collected details of eligible research. Appraisal forms and data extraction forms designed by the Joanna Briggs Institute as part of the QARI and NOTARI systematic review software packages were used for this review. Findings, Family members' perceptions of their relationships with staff showed that a strong focus was placed on opportunities for the family to be involved in the patient's care. Staff members also expressed a theoretical support for the collaborative process, however, this belief often did not translate to the staff members' clinical practice. In the studies included in the review staff were frequently found to rely on traditional medical models of care in their clinical practice and maintaining control over the environment, rather than fully collaborating with families. Four factors were found to be essential to interventions designed to support a collaborative partnership between family members and healthcare staff: communication, information, education and administrative support. Based on the evidence analysed in this systematic review, staff and family education on relationship development, power and control issues, communication skills and negotiating techniques is essential to promoting constructive staff,family relationships. Managerial support, such as addressing workloads and staffing issues; introducing care models focused on collaboration with families; and providing practical support for staff education, is essential to gaining sustained benefits from interventions designed to promote constructive family,staff relationships. [source] Older caregivers' coping strategies and sense of coherence in relation to quality of lifeJOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING, Issue 6 2007Anna Kristensson Ekwall Abstract Aim., This paper reports a study to investigate coping strategies and sense of coherence in relation to gender, the extent of care, caregiving activities and health-related quality of life in a population-based sample of caregivers aged 75 and over. Background., Caring for another person can be stressful both emotionally, and caregiver burden may affect quality of life in a negative way for the carer. Caregivers' experience of burden may depend on for example, the behaviour of the person cared for, their own health and their sense of coherence. Older people take a great part of caregiving responsibility and thus understanding of their strain and coping is required. Methods., A postal survey was carried out in 2001 with 171 informal caregivers, aged 75 or older. The response rate was 47%. The questionnaire included the Short-Form 12, Carer's Assessment of Managing Index, and Sense of Coherence instrument. Results., Almost 70% of caregivers provided help every day. Higher health-related quality of life was predicted by using self-sustaining coping strategies and by high sense of coherence. Poor economic situation and demanding social and practical support predicted low scores. Conclusion., These findings could help identify those at risk of low quality of life due to caregiving, dysfunctional coping or lack of information about care. Early intervention, including education about alternative coping strategies and practical information, might allow caregivers better possibilities to continue caring with less negative effects on their lives. [source] The Social Networks of People with Intellectual Disability Living in the Community 12 Years after Resettlement from Long-Stay HospitalsJOURNAL OF APPLIED RESEARCH IN INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES, Issue 4 2006Rachel Forrester-Jones Background, The social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities presents a major challenge to services. As part of a 12-year follow up of people resettled from long-stay hospitals, the size of 213 individuals' social networks and the types of social support they received were investigated, as viewed by people with intellectual disabilities themselves. The types of support received in four different kinds of community accommodation were compared. Method, Individuals were interviewed and their social support networks mapped using a Social Network Guide developed for the study. Descriptive statistics were generated and comparisons made using generalized linear modelling. Results, The sample comprised 117 men (average age 51 years) and 96 women (average age 56 years). All but seven were White British, 92% were single and they had in general, mild to moderate intellectual disabilities. The average network size was 22 members (range 3,51). The mean density was 0.5. A quarter of all network members were other service users with intellectual disabilities and a further 43% were staff. Only a third of the members were unrelated to learning disability services. In general, the main providers of both emotional and practical support were staff, although these relationships were less likely to be described as reciprocal. Other people with intellectual disabilities were the second most frequent providers of all types of support. People in small group homes, hostels and supported accommodation were significantly more likely to report close and companiable relationships than those in residential and nursing homes, but they also reported a greater proportion of critical behaviour. Conclusions, The social networks revealed in this study are considerably larger than those of previous studies which have relied on staff reports, but findings about the generally limited social integration of people with intellectual disabilities are similar. A clearer policy and practice focus on the desirability of a range of different social contexts from which to derive potentially supportive network members is required so that people do not remain segregated in one area of life. [source] A systematic review of informal caregivers' needs in providing home-based end-of-life care to people with cancerJOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 10 2009Penny E Bee Aims., This paper presents the results of a systematic review examining the practical information needs of informal caregivers providing home-based palliative and end-of-life care to people with advanced cancer. Background., Modern hospice care has led to increases in home-based palliative care services, with informal caregivers assuming responsibility for the majority of care. In response, health policy emphasises the provision of palliative care services in which both the patient and carer receive adequate support throughout illness and death. While the emotional needs of carers have been extensively researched, their practical needs with respect to the provision of physical care are yet to receive systematic attention. Design., Systematic review. Methods., Eligible articles were identified via electronic searches of research and evidence-based databases, hand-searching of academic journals and searches of non-academic grey literature websites. Quality of research was assessed via accepted guidelines for reviewing non-randomised, observational and qualitative literature. Data were synthesised by comparing and contrasting the findings to identify prominent themes. Results., Research consistently highlights this lack of practical support, often related to inadequate information exchange. These deficits typically manifest in relatives adopting a ,trial and error' approach to palliative care. Informal carers request a greater quantity of practically-focussed information, improvements in quality and increased methods of dissemination. Conclusion., Synthesis of the literature suggests that home-based palliative care services have been insufficiently focussed on assisting informal caregivers acquire practical nursing skills. Relevance to clinical practice., Enhanced access to professional advice represents a potentially effective method of increasing carers' confidence in their ability to undertake practical aspects of home-based care. Evidence suggests that nurses and other health providers may better assist home-based carers by providing the information and skills-training necessary to facilitate this. This may necessitate the involvement of carers in the design and testing of new educational interventions. [source] Relationships between partner's support during labour and maternal outcomesJOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 2 2000MPhil, Wan Yim Ip BN ,,The objective of this study was to measure the relationship between women's ratings of partners' participation during labour and maternal outcomes as measured by anxiety level, pain perception, dosage of pain-relieving drug used and length of labour. ,,A convenience sample of 45 primigravid women was selected from the postpartum unit of a public hospital in Hong Kong. They were all first-time Chinese mothers, aged 18 or over, who had attended antenatal classes and had their partners present during labour. ,,The State Scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was used to measure maternal anxiety during labour. Labour pain was measured by the Visual Analogue Scale. A series of scales were developed to measure partners' participation during labour. ,,Women's ratings of partners' practical support were significantly lower than their ratings of partners' emotional support. There were no significant associations between level of emotional support and maternal outcome measures. However, perceived practical support was positively related to the dosage of pain-relieving drug used and total length of labour. Positive relationships between the duration of partners' presence and women's ratings of perceived support provided by partners during labour were also found. [source] Integrating gender into a basic medical curriculumMEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 11 2005P Verdonk Introduction, In 1998, gaps were found to exist in the basic medical curriculum of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre regarding health-related gender differences in terms of biological, psychological and social factors. After screening the curriculum for language, content and context, adjustments aimed at incorporating gender issues were proposed. The aim of this study was to evaluate those adjustments, as well as to investigate whether gender had been successfully incorporated into the basic medical curriculum, and to identify the factors that played a role in this. Methods, The education material of 9 curricular blocks was re-evaluated and interviews were held with block co-ordinators. Results, Since the beginning of the project, gender has increasingly been brought to the attention of the students. Various factors have played a role: concrete and directly executable content-oriented proposals for adjustment; adequate translation of gender differences into actual patient care; motivated block co-ordinators; the presence of a ,trigger person' in the faculty; incorporation into the existing education programme; the involvement of block co-ordinators in decision making, and the provision of practical support. Discussion, Integrating gender into the basic medical curriculum has been largely successful. Block co-ordinators' personal recognition of the importance of gender in patient care greatly facilitated implementation. The evaluation stimulated the forming of new ideas. It is recommended that these factors and those mentioned above should be taken into consideration when integrating gender into other faculties. [source] Manifestations of systemic sclerosis necessitate a holistic approach to patient care: a case reportMUSCULOSKELETAL CARE, Issue 3 2010Robert J. Moots Abstract This case describes a young woman with manifestations of systemic sclerosis in multiple organ systems and her guidance through two successful pregnancies. This case emphasizes that patients with severe diseases are not just clinical cases; they each have unique needs and concerns beyond the physical manifestations of their disease. Young patients can be a particular challenge due to their need for independence. Communication is the key. Textbook advice in this case was that the risks posed by pregnancy were too great; however, a holistic approach, including frank discussion and much practical support, enabled the patient to make informed choices about her life, with a successful outcome. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Volunteer Support for Mothers with New Babies: Perceptions of Need and Support ReceivedCHILDREN & SOCIETY, Issue 3 2010Kristen MacPherson Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 55 mothers of infants. Some had received Home-Start during their infant's first year, others were offered the support but declined and the remainder were not offered Home-Start. Most of their support had come from informal sources, such as family and friends with less from professionals. Mothers who received Home-Start described beneficial aspects, in particular, the extent of practical support provided, preferable to calling on close relatives or friends. Difficulties related to volunteer characteristics and administrative problems. Overall volunteer support can be important to complement informal and formal support, but needs careful management. [source] | ||||||||||