Acceptability and feasibility of recruitment and data collection in a field study of hospital nurses’ handoffs using mobile devices

Abstract

BackgroundThe portability and multiple functionalities of mobile devices make them well suited for collecting field data for naturalistic research, which is often beset with complexities in recruitment and logistics. This paper describes the implementation of a research protocol using mobile devices to study nurses’ exchanges of patient information at change of shift.MethodsNurses from three medical and surgical units of an acute care teaching hospital in Montreal, Canada, were invited to participate. On 10 selected days, participants were asked to record their handoffs using mobile devices and to complete paper questionnaires regarding these exchanges. Nurse acceptance of mobile devices was assessed using a 30-item technology acceptance questionnaire and focus group interviews. The principal feasibility indicator was whether or not 80 complete handoffs could be collected on each unit.ResultsFrom October to December 2017, 63 of 108 eligible nurses completed the study. Results suggest that the use of mobile devices was acceptable to nurses, who felt that the devices were easy to use but did not improve their job performance. The principal feasibility criterion was met, with complete data collected for 176, 84, and 170 of the eligible handoffs on each unit (81% of eligible handoffs). The research protocol was acceptable to nurses, who felt the study’s demands did not interfere with their clinical work.ConclusionsThe research protocol involving mobile devices was feasible and acceptable to nurses. Nurses felt the research protocol, including the use of mobile devices, required minimal investment of time and effort. This suggests that their decision to participate in research involving mobile devices was based on their perception that the study protocol and the use of the device would not be demanding. Further work is needed to determine if studies involving more sophisticated and possibly more demanding technology would be equally feasible and acceptable to nurses.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40814-018-0353-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Nursing handoffs and clinical judgments regarding patient risk of deterioration: A mixed‐methods study

“…This paper reports one set of analyses from a larger sequential explanatory mixed-methods study (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011), which explored how change-of-shift handoffs relate to nurses' clinical judgments regarding patient deterioration and is reported according to Strengthening The Reporting of OBservational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE;von Elm et al, 2008) and COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research (COREQ; Tong, Sainsbury, & Craig, 2007) guidelines (Supplementary Files S1 and S2). The feasibility and acceptability of the protocol were described previously (Lavoie et al, 2018).…”

Nurses' experience of handoffs on four Canadian medical and surgical units: A shared accountability for knowing and safeguarding the patient

“…Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim by a professional transcriptionist. Prior to the focus groups, participants had met the researchers in a mixedmethods study of nursing handoff that had been conducted on the units (Lavoie et al, 2018;Lavoie, Clarke, Clausen, Purden, Emed, Cosencova et al, 2020). They were informed that the goal of the focus groups was to gain a contextualized understanding of their experience to guide eventual educational or quality improvement efforts.…”

Nurses’ judgments of patient risk of deterioration at change-of-shift handoff: Agreement between nurses and comparison with early warning scores

“…Data for this study were drawn from a larger study of the relationship between nurses' handoffs and judgments of patient risk of deterioration, the design of which has been detailed elsewhere. 30 Data in this prospective descriptive correlational study were collected from acute care nurses on one surgical unit (A) and two medical units (B and C) at a tertiary acute care bilingual (English and French) university-affiliated hospital in Montreal, Canada from September to December 2017. In fiscal year 2016-2017, the units received 884, 805, and 888 admissions, and mean lengths of stay were 8.2, 14.2, and 12.3 days, respectively.…”