Nurses' attitudes regarding the importance of families in nursing care: A cross‐sectional study

Abstract

Aims and objectives To investigate attitudes towards family involvement in care among a broad sample of Danish nurses from all sectors and healthcare settings. Background Evidence suggests that nurses hold both supportive and less supportive attitudes about involvement of family members in the care of patients, and the existing findings are limited to specific healthcare contexts. Design A cross‐sectional study adhering to the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology for reporting observational studies. Methods Using snowball sampling, the Families' Importance in Nursing Care‐Nurses' Attitudes questionnaire was initially administered to a broad, convenience sample of Danish registered nurses through social media: Facebook interest groups and the homepage of the Danish Family Nursing Association. These nurses were encouraged to send the invitation to participate in their network of nursing colleagues. Complete data sets from 1,720 nurses were available for analysis. Results In general, the nurses considered the family as important in patient care. Nurses who held master's and doctorate degrees scored significantly higher than nurses with a basic nursing education. Nurses who had had experience with illness within their own families tended to score higher on the family as a conversational partner subscale than those without this experience. Nurses with the longest engagement within hospital settings scored significantly lower than those with the longest engagement within primary health care and/or psychiatry. Conclusions Families are considered important in nursing care. Younger nurses with a basic education, short‐term engagement at a hospital and no experiences with illness within their own families were predictors of less supportive attitudes towards including the family in nursing care. Relevance to clinical practice Clinical leaders and managers should promote education on the importance of active family involvement in patient care in clinical practice and undergraduate education. More focus on collaboration with families in the hospital setting is needed.

Nurses’ Attitudes Toward the Importance of Families in Nursing Care: A Multinational Comparative Study

“…Including a control group in intervention studies may also be warranted. Interventions such as education or training that are tailored to the practice area, and aim to develop skills and competencies in communicating and collaborating with families as active partners in the care process, are approaches that could support family-focused care Hoplock et al, 2019;Hsiao & Tsai, 2015;Linnarsson et al, 2014;Luttik et al, 2017;Østergaard et al, 2020). For example, the International Family Nursing Association (IFNA, 2015) outlined nurse competencies for generalist family nursing practice centered around five core competencies:…”

Point-of-care used in the treatment of older patients with cancer. The perception and experience of nurses

“…However, some patients do not have any immediate family to help them using the device; this is of concern. In other studies, it is recommended that their family are co-informed and thus involved in the treatment and care (Harvey et al, 2019;Ostergaard et al, 2020). Changing daily routines on the oncology ward and making sure shift were covered with sufficient and knowledgeable staff when the patients were making phone calls to the hospital were of concern.…”

A integração da família nos cuidados de enfermagem: perspetiva de enfermeiros e estudantes de enfermagem

“…We believe that the conceptualization of nursing care focusing on the family can be developed both in primary and hospital care settings because nursing care must be centered on the family, regardless of the clinical context of care delivery (Fernandes et al, 2015). The relationship between nurses and family members is central to the quality of clinical nursing practice, and today there are several investigations that seek to understand the importance given to the family by nurses and how the valuation of the family by these professionals determines the success of nursing care provided (Hagedoorn et al, 2017;Østergaard et al, 2020). Nurses' attitudes towards family involvement affect their willingness to interact and involve families in nursing care.…”