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ABSTRACT: Background
patient empowerment, through which patients become self-determining agents with some control over their health and healthcare, is a common theme across health policies globally. Most care for older people is in the acute setting, but there is little evidence to inform the delivery of empowering hospital care.Objective
we aimed to explore challenges to and facilitators of empowerment among older people with advanced disease in hospital, and the impact of palliative care.Methods
we conducted an ethnography in six hospitals in England, Ireland and the USA. The ethnography involved: interviews with patients aged ≥65, informal caregivers, specialist palliative care (SPC) staff and other clinicians who cared for older adults with advanced disease, and fieldwork. Data were analysed using directed thematic analysis.Results
analysis of 91 interviews and 340 h of observational data revealed substantial challenges to empowerment: poor communication and information provision, combined with routinised and fragmented inpatient care, restricted patients' self-efficacy, self-management, choice and decision-making. Information and knowledge were often necessary for empowerment, but not sufficient: empowerment depended on patient-centredness being enacted at an organisational and staff level. SPC facilitated empowerment by prioritising patient-centred care, tailored communication and information provision, and the support of other clinicians.Conclusions
empowering older people in the acute setting requires changes throughout the health system. Facilitators of empowerment include excellent staff-patient communication, patient-centred, relational care, an organisational focus on patient experience rather than throughput, and appropriate access to SPC. Findings have relevance for many high- and middle-income countries with a growing population of older patients with advanced disease.
SUBMITTER: Selman LE
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5860377 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Selman Lucy Ellen LE Daveson Barbara A BA Smith Melinda M Johnston Bridget B Ryan Karen K Morrison R Sean RS Pannell Caty C McQuillan Regina R de Wolf-Linder Suzanne S Pantilat Steven Z SZ Klass Lara L Meier Diane D Normand Charles C Higginson Irene J IJ
Age and ageing 20170301 2
<h4>Background</h4>patient empowerment, through which patients become self-determining agents with some control over their health and healthcare, is a common theme across health policies globally. Most care for older people is in the acute setting, but there is little evidence to inform the delivery of empowering hospital care.<h4>Objective</h4>we aimed to explore challenges to and facilitators of empowerment among older people with advanced disease in hospital, and the impact of palliative care ...[more]