This study aims to explore how a changed COVID-19 work environment influences nurses’ clinical decision-making. Data were collected via three focus groups totaling 14 nurses working in COVID-19 ...pandemic wards at a Danish university hospital. The factors influencing decision-making are described in three themes; navigating in a COVID-19 dominated context, recognizing the importance of collegial fellowship, and the complexities of feeling competent. A strong joint commitment among the nurses to manage critical situations fostered a culture of knowledge-sharing and drawing on colleagues’ competencies in clinical decision-making. It is important for nurse leaders to consider multiple factors when preparing nurses not only to work in changing work environments, but also when nurses are asked to work in environments and specialties that deviate from their usual routines.
Nurses handle supplementary oxygen to intensive care unit patients as part of their daily practise. To secure patients of optimal and safe care, knowledge of nurses’ perception of this practise, ...including influencing factors for adjusting oxygenation levels is essential. This study aimed to explore intensive care nurses’ perception of handling oxygenation and of factors that govern and influence this practise.
A mixed methods approach was applied comprising six focus group interviews, conducted in February/March 2017, leading to construction of a questionnaire distributed to 535 ICU nurses in September 2017. Following a process of content analysis, the findings were discussed against Gittell’s framework for relational coordination.
Intensive care units in rural, urban and university hospital settings.
A deeper understanding of nurses’ perception of handling oxygenation to patients in the intensive care unit.
Findings are presented through the categories Treatment Guidance, Nursing Practise, Knowledge and Competences and Inter-professional Collaboration.
Nurses’ practise of handling supplementary oxygen therapy to the intensive care patient is influenced by day-by-day physician prescribed upper and lower limits for pO2 and pCO2, by nurses’ understanding of the individual clinical patient situation and by knowledge of pros and cons in relation to oxygen therapy including observational and clinical assessment expertise. Establishing working environments in the intensive care unit setting based on mutual inter- and intra-professional respect may contribute to enhance safe and high quality patient care.
Aim
To explore and describe how the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) and Individual Early Warning Score (I‐EWS) are used and how they support nurses' patient risk assessment practice.
Design
A ...qualitative observational fieldwork study drawing on ethnographical principles was performed in six hospitals in two regions of Denmark in 2019.
Methods
Data were generated from participant observations and informal interviews with 32 nurses across 15 different wards in the hospitals. A total of 180 h of participant observation was performed. The observations lasted between 1.5 and 8 h and were conducted during day or evening shifts.
Results
NEWS and I‐EWS supported nurses' observations of patients, providing useful knowledge for planning patient care, and prompting critical thinking. However, the risk assessment task was sometimes delegated to less experienced staff members, such as nursing students and healthcare assistants. The Early Warning Score (EWS) systems were often adapted by nurses according to contextual aspects, such as the culture of the speciality in which the nurses worked and their levels of competency. In some situations, I‐EWS had the effect of enhancing nurse autonomy and responsibility for decision‐making in relation to patient care.
Conclusions
EWS systems support nurses' patient risk assessment practice, providing useful information. I‐EWS makes it easier to factor the heterogeneity of patients and the clinical situation into the risk assessments. The delegation of risk assessment to other, less experienced staff members pose a risk to patient safety, which needs to be addressed in the ongoing debate regarding the shortage of nurses.
Impact
The findings of this study can help ward nurses, hospital managers and policymakers to develop and improve strategies for improved person‐centred nursing care.
bundgaard k., nielsen k.b., delmar c. & sørensen e.e. (2012) What to know and how to get to know? A fieldwork study outlining the understanding of knowing the patient in facilities for short‐term ...stay. Journal of Advanced Nursing68(10), 2280–2288.
Aim. To report a descriptive study of nursing in facilities for short‐term stay aiming to outline what ‘knowing the patient’ means in an endoscopic outpatient clinic.
Background. ‘Knowing the patient’ is indispensable to the effort of tailoring nursing to the individual patient’s needs. Structural changes in the practice environments, however, reduce the amount of time a nurse spends getting to know the patient. Despite recent years’ focus on the subject, no uniform description of ‘knowing the patient’ in facilities for short‐term stay exists.
Design. A fieldwork study influenced by practical ethnographic principles was performed in a high‐technology endoscopic outpatient clinic during 2008 – 2010.
Methods. Data were collected using participant observation for 12 weeks and semi‐structured interviews with eight patients and four nurses.
Findings. Findings were summarized into two categories ‘What to know?’ and ‘How to get to know?’ The former concerned practical issues in relation to gastroscopy and was described in terms of the patient’s level of anxiety, wish for medication and previous experiences. The latter ‘How to get to know?’ concerned instruments employed in getting to know the patient and was described in terms of the use of communication and sensing.
Conclusions. ‘Knowing the patient’ in the endoscopic outpatient clinic was understood in a very practical sense. Conversation and the use of the eyes and physical touch enabled a situational awareness. It helped tailor nursing to the patient’s needs and allowed the nurse to treat every patient as a unique individual.
The maintenance of physical distance, the absence of relatives and the relocation of registered nurses to COVID-19 units presumably affects nursing care at non-COVID-19 units. Using a qualitative ...design, this study explored registered nurses’ experiences of how COVID-19 influenced nursing care in non-COVID-19 units at a Danish university hospital during the first wave of the virus. The study is reported using the COREQ checklist. The analysis offered two findings: (1) the challenge of an increased workload for registered nurses remaining in non-COVID-19 units and (2) the difficulty of navigating the contradictory needs for both closeness to and distance from patients. The study concluded that several factors challenged nursing care in non-COVID-19 units during the COVID-19 pandemic. These may have decreased the amount of contact between patients and registered nurses, which may have contributed to a task-oriented approach to nursing care, leading to missed nursing care.
Relatives are an important resource to hospitalised patients and hence to nursing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, visiting restriction policies were implemented in healthcare settings globally, ...unwillingly excluding relatives from visiting the bedsides of their loved ones. The aim of the present study was to explore how the visiting restrictions influenced relatives’ relationships with patients and collaboration with registered nurses at non-pandemic hospital wards. In total, 13 relatives were interviewed. The study was reported following the COREQ guidelines and checklist. Content analysis led to three themes: 1) being excluded from providing care and support; 2) being excluded from conveying person-centred and situational relevant knowledge to registered nurses; and 3) being excluded from assessing the health status of the hospitalised loved one. Together they describe relatives feeling worried and powerless regarding the health of their hospitalised loved one and the performed nursing care. Findings from studies such as this are pivotal to any future national or global health crisis, where visiting restriction policies are implemented.
This paper focus on nursing and time in endoscopy facilities for short-term stay aiming to explore aspects of time in this setting and how expectations from the healthcare organisation, patients and ...nurses are expressed and met when managing nursing time.
Former research primarily focuses on the subject of time in the understanding of duration where having more time is closely associated with the ability to deliver better quality nursing care. The main concern is the nurses' increased number of tasks and the decreased length of time at their disposal. However, few studies describe nursing when time is sparse, and the possibility of providing individualised nursing within a very short span of time.
Inspired by practical ethnographic principles, a fieldwork study was performed in high technology endoscopy clinics during 2008-2010.
Data triangulation included participant observation, participant reports and patients and nurses semi-structured interviews.
The issue of time was an interwoven part of life in the productive endoscopy units. The understanding of time related to the main category: 'Time - making the best of it', and the sub categories "Responsibility of time", "Information and preparation", and "Time wasters".
The study underlines the possibility of combining the health care systems, patients and the nurses' perspectives on and expectations of how to spend nursing time in endoscopy settings. In successful patient pathways nursing maximize patient outcome, support the goals of the healthcare organisations, is reliable, assure, tangible, empathic and responsive, and is individually tailored to the patient's needs. The study contributes by underlining the importance of discussing not how to get more time in clinical practice but instead how to spend the time in the best way possible.
Nurses are imperative for healthcare systems’ ability to effectively function during pandemics, yet multiple factors may affect their willingness and preparedness to work. The aim of the present ...cross-sectional survey was to identify factors associated with registered nurses’ (RN) willingness and preparedness to work during the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The study was reported following the STROBE guidelines. A total of 358 nurses completed a self-administered online questionnaire. The participants were a part of a COVID-19 task force at a Danish university hospital during spring 2020. The results showed that the majority of RNs felt a professional obligation to engage in clinical work during the pandemic; however, their willingness and preparedness to work were affected by multiple factors, such as being relocated voluntarily, being prepared for the task and feeling safe. This study highlights that these factors are essential for the hospital management and nurse leaders to take responsibility for.
COVID-19 restrictions prevented relatives from visiting and accompanying patients to hospital and required that nurses wore personal protective equipment. These changes affected patients’ ...relationships with relatives and challenged their ability to connect with nurses. Individual, semi-structured interviews with 15 patients were carried out to explore patients’ experiences of their relationships with relatives and their collaboration with nurses during in- and outpatient contacts in non-COVID-19 hospital wards. The analysis of data was guided by phenomenological hermeneutic frame of reference and the study was reported according to the COREQ checklist. The findings illustrated that patients felt lonely and insecure when separated from relatives, caught between relatives and professionals during information exchange, and experienced the absence of relatives as both beneficial and burdening. Visitor restrictions provided patients with time to heal but prevented provision of informal care. Patients had to take responsibility for maintaining contact with relatives independent of their health condition. COVID-19 restrictions created distance with nurses, which potentially led to insufficient physical and psychosocial care.
This paper is a descriptive study of nursing in facilities for short‐term stay, aiming to outline the expectations and needs for nursing of patients undergoing gastroscopy in outpatient endoscopy ...clinics. Existing research finds it important to meet patients' expectations and needs for help to get through a procedure in the best and safest way possible. Despite recent years' focus on patient expectations, little attention has been paid to understanding the patients' distinct expectations and needs for nursing in the context of facilities for short‐term stay. A fieldwork study influenced by practical ethnographic principles was performed in high‐technology endoscopy outpatient clinics during 2008 – 2010. Data were collected using triangulation of participant observation for 12 weeks including participant reports and semi‐structured interviews with eight patients and four nurses. The expectations and needs for nursing of patients undergoing gastroscopy were related to two main areas, summarized by the categories: ‘Nervousness and anxiety’ and ‘Maintaining control’. The former concerned how patients managed their nervousness and anxiety and was described differently in terms of ‘Getting it over with’, ‘The meaning of words’ and ‘Taking precautions’. The latter ‘Maintaining control’ concerned how patients in different ways managed to maintain control over their situation and was described in terms of ‘Being informed’, ‘Others are in the same “boat”’ and ‘Being proactive’. The study concludes that nervousness and anxiety are expressed differently in patients undergoing gastroscopy and that patients have individual ways of claiming their right to elements of control over the situation and the course of gastroscopy. In order for nursing in endoscopy settings to be tailored to the individual patient, it must be adapted to the individual patient's ways of managing nervousness and anxiety as well as ways of claiming control.
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