Alvisa Palese, Elisa Ambrosi and Luisa Saiani
Udine University, Italy
University of Verona, Italy
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Nurs Care
Informal caregiving, intended as the presence of family members, friends or other lay caregivers providing care at the patient�s bedside, has been widely recommended for its important emotional and social impact, and for its contribution to basic care. With the increased frailty of patients admitted into hospital and the current economic crisis, which may have increased the amount of needed care and reduced the hospital nursing staff, there is a need to update the knowledge available on in-hospital informal care. The aim of this longitudinal study was to describe the individual and organizational predictors of the amount of informal care received by patients admitted into 12 acute medical units in the Northern Italy. The 77.1% of the included patients (N=1,464) received at least one shift of informal care during their in-hospital stay, especially during the mornings and afternoons. At the patient level, those at higher risk of prolonged hospitalization and difficult discharge on admission (b=0.119, 95% CI 0.035-0.203) and those reporting higher occurrence of negative outcomes, such as pressure sores (b=1.508, 95% CI 0.567-2.449), confusion events and use of physical restraints (b=0.532, 95% CI 0.370-0.695) during the hospitalization (b=0.182, 95% CI 0.027-0.337), were more likely to receive informal care. At the organizational level, a higher amount of missed nursing care (b=0.179, 95% CI 0.086-0.271), was associated with an increased number of informal care shifts. The results seem to suggest that families contribute substantially to the care of patients, especially of the frailer ones, and that try to compensate for organizational failures.
Email: alvisa.palese@uniud.it
Journal of Nursing & Care received 4230 citations as per Google Scholar report
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