Nurse-patient interaction after training in integrity promoting care at a long-term ward: analysis of video-recorded morning care sessions

Abstract

Morning care is a complex and problematic task for the demented patient, who has problems in understanding and coping with the situation. A training programme of integrity promoting care was given to the staff of a long-term ward and improvements of care were implemented during a 3 month intervention period. To evaluate possible effects, different parameters were used and compared with the data of a control ward. This report describes how caregivers behaved towards demented patients during morning care, before and after the training, and how patients' behaviour changed. The results are based on behaviour samples from 10 patients and 10 caregivers during 99 video-recorded morning care sessions, "double blindly" analysed. The number of coding schemes was 483, each consisting of 93 questions. The most prominent differences observed after the intervention were the increased number of opportunities to take part in decisions and activities given to the patients by the caregivers, more co-operation from patients, and finally an increase in verbal contact initiated both by patients and caregivers. It seems reasonable to suggest that when the environment was made more adequate and the demented patients could cope with it, they could use latent abilities that were not manifest in a less adequate environment.