Health care professionals' experiences with goal setting during initial rehabilitation after newly acquired spinal cord injury/ disorder - a qualitative focus group study.
Patricia Lampart, Livia Schäppi, Wolf Axel Langewitz and 3 others
PMID 36189066WHAT IT FOUND
Health care professionals described goal setting after spinal cord injury as shaped by insurance limits, team meetings, and patient emotions.
Interprofessional goal rounds helped include patients, while small achievable steps eased tension from unrealistic hopes and uncertainty.
Key findings
01Regular interprofessional goal-setting visits with patients were described as beneficial because they focused the process on patients and active participation.
02Health insurance pressure to shorten rehabilitation and limited discharge options were described as obstacles to goal setting.
03Professionals described tension when patients' goals seemed unrealistic, and they reported using smaller short-term goals to reduce that tension.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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 study included only health care professionals, not patients or families, so it does not report the patient side of goal setting. It was done in one specialized center with years of interprofessional communication training and a patient-centred culture, so the themes may not transfer to other services. Twenty-two of 30 invited participants took part, and some team members did not participate because of lack of time. Professions were unevenly represented, with small subsamples of some groups, so some professions may be underrepresented. Most participants held leadership positions, so less experienced professionals were less represented. The study was qualitative and tested no outcomes, so it cannot show that goal-setting rounds improve rehabilitation results or satisfaction.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the reported benefits of interprofessional goal-setting rounds as proof that they improve outcomes. The study was qualitative, included health care professionals only, and participants described their experiences and suggested links rather than testing goal-setting effects.