Adequacy of care provision in long-term home nursing arrangements: A triangulation of three perspectives.
Anna-Henrikje Seidlein, Maresa Buchholz, Sabine Salloch and 1 others
PMID 32802385WHAT IT FOUND
Home care recipients, informal caregivers and nurses described care-level assessments as too narrow and care as often too much, too little or wrong.
They reported barriers to equipment, mobility, therapy and social participation.
Key findings
01The analysis produced two themes: the long-term care insurance system as a barrier to care, and care overlooking individual needs, with sub-themes of overprovision, underprovision and misprovision.
02Participants described the care-dependency assessment as counting single actions to produce misleading Minute Care and as a snapshot that did not reflect daily needs.
03Informal caregivers reported underprovision of personal aid and equipment, including too little incontinence material.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The sample was limited to 10 care recipients, 8 informal caregivers and 10 professional caregivers from three home care services in a German region. Participants were recruited through home care services, so people and families without formal support were not included. The study used qualitative interviews, so the themes are subjective perceptions and cannot show how common the problems are or whether care was objectively inadequate. The interviews took place during implementation of a healthcare reform, which may have shaped expectations about new Care Grades. The sample was described as homogeneous for age and socio-cultural background, and the authors noted that the diseases causing care dependency were not considered in sampling.
Declared interests
The authors declared no financial or non-financial competing interests.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these accounts as proof that home nursing care is objectively inadequate. The study did not measure clinical outcomes or compare services, and participants were recruited through home care services.