Evaluating Perspectives of Relatives of Nursing Home Residents on the Nursing Home Visiting Restrictions During the COVID-19 Crisis: A Dutch Cross-Sectional Survey Study.
Joost D Wammes, Daisy Kolk MSc, Judith H van den Besselaar Md and 3 others
PMID 33148480WHAT IT FOUND
Relatives of nursing home residents were most satisfied when nurses phoned updates, or contact happened behind glass or outside.
More options increased satisfaction, but there was no consensus that restrictions protected residents enough to outweigh harm.
Key findings
01Relatives were most satisfied when nurses informed them by telephone (44%), when contact was behind glass (40%), or when contact was outside while maintaining distance (40%).
02Most relatives selected loneliness (76%), sadness (66%), and loss of quality of life (62%) as potential adverse effects on residents, and sadness (73%) as the most selected adverse effect on relatives.
03Relatives were not in consensus: 66.7% agreed visiting restrictions protected residents, while 40.1% agreed the protective effect outweighed adverse effects.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The respondents were a convenience sample recruited through unions, a dementia federation, and newspapers, so the findings may overrepresent people with internet access and particular views. Of the 3316 people who started the survey, 1117 were ineligible and 202 were excluded, leaving 1997 analysed. Baseline tables report missing data for sex, age, and living area. The study measured relatives' perceptions at one time, not residents' outcomes or causal effects of the visiting restrictions. Only relatives and friends were surveyed, and no nursing home residents were included. Only a small proportion of participants had access to more than 2 contact possibilities.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the loneliness and sadness figures as measured harms caused by the restrictions. They were relatives' perceptions in a cross-sectional convenience survey, and the study did not compare residents before and after visiting restrictions.