Patient Performance of Care Tasks During Acute Hospitalisation: A Scoping Review.
Chava Kurtz, Orly Tonkikh, Sivan Spitzer and 1 others
PMID 39861958WHAT IT FOUND
Hospitalised patients performing their own care tasks often had positive outcomes, especially satisfaction, knowledge, pain or glucose control; chronic medication and ostomy tasks were positive, acute pain and sedation results were mixed.
Nurses can use supervised self-care to assess ability.
Key findings
01Thirty-five studies were included, and most care tasks involved self-administration of medications.
02Studies of chronic self-care tasks and ostomy care reported positive outcomes, while studies of acute tasks reported mixed outcomes.
03Only four articles referred to non-medication tasks: ostomy management, fluid monitoring, or monitoring and reporting clinical deterioration.
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
Most identified studies focused on medication maintenance, especially self-administration, so conclusions are limited for other care tasks. Only four articles covered tasks other than medication administration, so ostomy, fluid monitoring and deterioration reporting are thinly represented. The review included only English quantitative observational or experimental studies and excluded staff experiences, instrument development, decision-making only studies, self-care capability studies, and several settings. Self-care practices that were not explicitly defined as self-care or were not the primary focus of a study may not have been identified. Acute pain and sedation studies had mixed results, including neutral, negative and mixed findings, so benefits are not consistent across all acute tasks. Included studies varied in design, condition and outcome, and the review maps evidence rather than showing a consistent treatment effect.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this review as proof that patient self-care during hospitalisation always improves outcomes. Most included studies focused on medication administration, acute pain and sedation results were mixed, and the review does not show which patients can safely perform which tasks.