SHBC1099
G.F. GLASS1, R.Q. CHEONG1, G.F. CHIN2, D.Y.J. DEVON1, E.Y. CHAN1
Tan Tock Seng Hospital1, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital2
Patient activation is a key nursing goal, critical for better empowering hospitalized older adults preparing for discharge to effectively self-care at home. This could be enhanced by nurses through the delivery of person-centred care. Such individualized engagement and support at each nurse-patient encounter has the potential to enhance patient activation, better enabling self-care post-discharge. Hence, we sought to understand the relationship of person-centred care on patient activation.
We conducted a multi-centre cross-sectional survey of hospitalized older adults from January – June 2016. Multivariable linear regression was conducted to examine the effect of perceived person-centred nursing care after adjusting for demographic confounders.
300 older adults were surveyed, 65% of whom were at the top two levels of activation. Gender, age, education level, socioeconomic status, the presence of assistance at home and Barthel Index scores were retained in the final multivariable model as were identified to be confounders. After adjusting for these confounders, person-centred nursing care was identified to be the strongest predictor with the largest effect on patient activation (β=0.25, b=3.94, 95% CI:1.31-6.57, p<0.001).
Even after adjustment of the other demographic variables affecting patient activation, the perception of patient-centred nursing care remained the strongest predictor. Thus, it is critical to give nurses the time and resources to appropriately curate the care of older patients to their needs. This ensures patients are activated accordingly and helps to build better collaboration between the patient and nurse as they work together towards the post-discharge journey.
