Nurse-elderly patient communication in home care and institutional care: an explorative study

Abstract

This study explores communication patterns between nurses and elderly patients in two different care settings. In a sample of 181 video-taped nursing encounters, involving 47 nurses and 109 patients, a study was made of nurse-patient communication. The video recordings were observed using an adapted version of Roter's Interaction Analysis System, which yields frequencies of 23 types of verbal behaviours. These data were analyzed using correspondence analysis, to reduce them to a smaller number of verbal categories, in which two socio-emotional categories and three categories with task-related communication, could be distinguished. For each encounter five summary statistics corresponding to these categories were calculated. Using analysis of variance, it was shown that the amount of socio-emotional interaction in both settings appeared to be higher than was reported in previous studies into nurse-patient communication. Compared with the home for the elderly, communication was more task-related in home care.

Nurse-patient interaction and communication: A systematic literature review

“…In the context of nursing, most communication is committed to a certain aim and intention (Diers et al 1972) mainly to improve the health state of the individual (Flaskerud 1986;Shattell 2004). The actual goal of a communication determines to a great extent the way of communication (Caris-Verhallen et al 1998).…”

“…Environmental variables Different settings show different communicative behavior by nurses as was shown for home care compared to nursing homes (Caris-Verhallen et al 1998). The amount of interaction in homes for the elderly depended on the resident's mental status, meaning nurses interacted less with demented residents (Armstrong-Esther and Browne 1986).…”

Elderspeak Communication: Impact on Dementia Care

“…The PI became familiar with care routines for each resident and established that recording would not be too disruptive or upsetting. 38 On the actual day of recording, staff assigned to care for participating residents were invited to sign consent forms and to participate. The PI shadowed the resident during one shift and recorded ADL interactions as they occurred.…”

“…The remainder of recorded video for each subject was reviewed to identify interactions featuring bathing, eating or oral care, dressing, and another ADL activity for each resident. The first ten minutes of ADL care have been established as reliable representations of verbal (r =.80-.93) and nonverbal (r = .61-.92) behaviors in comparison to entire interactions 38 and are standard intervals in staff-resident interactions in dementia care research.39…”

Older persons’ worries expressed during home care visits: Exploring the content of cues and concerns identified by the Verona coding definitions of emotional sequences

“…Interviews are the most frequently used approach [5,6]. One observational study, focussed on the nurses' communication and not the older persons' experiences, found that home care nurses more often used socio-emotional communication than was reported in previous studies [7]. Another study found that communication between nurses and home care recipients included negotiating autonomy and solidarity for both parties [8].…”