Striving to establish patient participation in rehabilitation: the challenges experienced by nursing staff when changing practice to include the patient's perspective.
Randi Steensgaard, Raymond Kolbaek, Helge Kasch and 1 others
PMID 39748832WHAT IT FOUND
Nursing staff in spinal injury rehabilitation found conversations with patients valuable, but tight task schedules, interrupted time and unclear authority made it hard to listen calmly.
They asked for protected conversation time and formal priority in the care pathway.
Key findings
01The nursing staff valued eliciting the patient's perspective, but analysis showed three central obstacles to doing it well.
02Conversation was treated as secondary to practical tasks, so nurses often had to fit it into bedside care or bowel management.
03Nurses called for authority and a mandate to make patient perspective conversations part of the routine clinical pathway.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
Only eight nursing staff took part, not the whole ward, so other staff views may differ. The study was done in one spinal injury centre in Denmark, so the themes may not transfer to other services. The data came from staff meetings and evaluations, not patient interviews or measured outcomes. The authors note that involving inter-professional colleagues more fully might have changed the challenges. Action research is local, so its findings may not be directly transferable to other settings.
Declared interests
The authors declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication. Funding came from Novo Nordisk Foundation, Regional Hospital Central Jutland and Spinal Cord Injury Centre of Western Denmark, Department of Neurology. No other conflicts are reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the staff's call for protected conversation time as evidence that it improves patient participation. The study reports nursing staff experiences and barriers in one ward, not tested outcomes.