Interprofessional collaboration in the home care setting: perspectives of people receiving home care, relatives, nurses, general practitioners, and therapists-results of a qualitative analysis.

BACKGROUND: About one million people in need of home care in Germany are assisted by 15,400 home care services. Home healthcare is mostly a complex endeavour because interprofessional collaboration is often challenging. This might negatively impact patient safety. The project interprof HOME aims to develop an interprofessional person-centred care concept for people receiving home care in a multistep approach. In one of the work packages we explored how people receiving home care, relatives, nurses, general practitioners, and therapists (physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists) perceive collaboration in this setting. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 people receiving home care and with 21 relatives. Additionally, we worked with nine monoprofessional focus groups involving nurses of home care services (n = 17), general practitioners (n = 14), and therapists (n = 21). The data were analysed by content analysis. RESULTS: Three main categories evolved: "perception of interprofessional collaboration", "means of communication", and "barriers and facilitators". People receiving home care and relatives often perceive little to no interprofessional collaboration and take over a significant part of the organisational coordination and information exchange. Interprofessional collaboration in steady care situations does exist at times and mostly occurs in coordination tasks. Contact and information exchange are rare, however, interprofessional personal encounters are sporadic, and fixed agreements and permanent contact persons are not standard. These trends increase with the complexity of the healthcare situation. Joint collaborations are often perceived as highly beneficial. Means of communications such as telephone, fax, or e-mail are used differently and are often considered tedious and time-consuming. No interprofessional formal written or electronic documentation system exists. Personal acquaintance and mutual trust are perceived as being beneficial, while a lack of mutual availability, limited time, and inadequate compensation hinder interprofessional collaboration. CONCLUSIONS: Interprofessional collaboration in home care occurs irregularly, and coordination often remains with people receiving home care or relatives. While this individual care set-up may work sufficiently well in low complex care situations, it becomes vulnerable to disruptions with increasing complexity. Close interactions, joint collaboration, and fixed means of communication might improve healthcare at home. The findings were integrated into the development of the person-centred interprofessional care concept interprof HOME. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This study is registered on the International Clinical Trails registry platform ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT05149937 on 03/11/2021.

[Critical care nurses' decision-making regarding verification of blindly inserted gastric tubes: A cross-sectional questionnaire study]. / Entscheidungsfindung von Intensivpflegefachpersonen zur Verifikation blind applizierter Magensonden.

Critical care nurses' decision-making regarding verification of blindly inserted gastric tubes: A cross-sectional questionnaire study Abstract: Background: The placement and verification of the correct position of blindly applied gastric tubes is regularly performed by nurses in clinical practice. International guidelines recommend a radiological verification as a "first-line" method or if pH measurement is not possible. For Germany, neither evidence-based recommendations nor current data are available. Question: Which methods are used by nurses in German intensive care units for verification of the correct position of blindly applied gastric tubes and how do they assess the reliability of different methods? Methods: Multicenter questionnaire survey. Intensive care units in a non-probability, citeria-based sampling of hospitals in and around Cologne, Germany were included. One nurse was included per participating ward. Analyses were mostly descriptive. Results: In 22 hospitals, 38 wards agreed to participate and 32 (84%) responded to the survey. Auscultation of the upper abdomen with simultaneous air insufflation and aspiration of gastric secretions are frequently used methods for determining the position of gastric tubes. Participants consider auscultation, aspiration of gastric secretions, and radiological control as reliable methods. Conclusions: The findings are in contrast to international recommendations and support the need for evidence-based best practice recommendations and training. Likewise, there is a need for research on feasible bedside methods.

Patients' experiences of delirium: A systematic review and meta-summary of qualitative research.

AIMS: The purpose of this systematic review and meta-summary was the aggregation of the empirical qualitative literature on patients' experiences of delirium in order to support the development and implementation of patient-oriented delirium management and to guide future research. DESIGN: We conducted a systematic literature review of qualitative research published between January 1980 and June 2019. DATA SOURCES: In June 2019, we searched in Medline, CINAHL, SSCI and PsycInfo to identify relevant reports. In addition, we conducted searches in three dissertation databases (BASE, DART and ProQuest) and Google Scholar. REVIEW METHODS: We used methods developed by Sandelowski and Barroso to construct a meta-summary of the findings by extracting them from the reports, abstracting them into meta- findings and calculating their manifest interstudy frequency effect sizes. RESULTS: Out of the 742 identified records, 24 reports based on delirium experience accounts of 483 patients met our criteria and were included. One thousand ninety-seven findings were extracted from these reports and abstracted into 92 meta-findings. These were grouped to the five emerging themes 'perception', 'emotions', 'interaction with others', 'dealing with delirium' and 'influence on further life'. CONCLUSION: Delirium is commonly perceived as an overall distressing condition, which can accompany and influence patients even after hospital discharge. IMPACT: This systematic review and meta-summary is the most comprehensive aggregation of qualitative research of the patient delirium experience to date. It allows us to better understand, extract meaning from, and weigh the qualitative findings in their context by calculating their manifest frequency effect sizes. This can be used to support the development and implementation of delirium management concepts.