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To describe ambulance clinicians' experiences of self-determination in older patients.
The study had an inductive and explorative design, guided from a life-world perspective.
Thirty-two Swedish ambulance clinicians were interviewed in six focus groups in November 2019. The data were analysed with content analysis, developing manifest categories and latent themes.
The ambulance clinicians assessed the older patients' exercise of self-determination by engaging in conversation and by being visually alert, to eventually gain an overall picture of their decision-making capacity. This assessment was used as a platform when informing older patients of their rights, thus promoting their participation in care. Having limited time and narrow guidelines counteracted ambulance clinicians' ambitions to support older patients' general desire to avoid hospitalization, which resulted in an urge to displace their responsibility to external decision-makers.
Expectations that older patients with impaired decision-making ability will give homogeneous responses mean an increased risk of ageist attitudes with a simplified view of patient autonomy. Such attitudes risk the withholding of information about options that healthcare professionals do not wish older patients to choose. When decision-making is difficult, requests for expanded guidelines may paradoxically risk alienation from the professional nursing role.
The findings show ambulance clinicians' unwillingness to shoulder their professional responsibility when encountering older patients with impaired decision-making ability. In assuming that all older patients reason in the same way, ambulance clinicians tend to adopt a simplistic and somewhat ageist approach when it comes to patient autonomy. This points to deficiencies in ethical competence, which is why increased ethics support is deemed suitable to promote and develop ethical competence. Such support can increase the ability to act as autonomous professionals in accordance with professional ethical codes.
This study adhered to COREQ guidelines.
None.
To illuminate from the perspective of nurses in ambulance services the experiences of using a web-based advisory decision support system to assess care needs and refer patients.
Inductive and descriptive approaches.
Thirteen semi-structured interviews were conducted in the spring of 2020. The data were analysed through the reflexive thematic analysis.
The Swedish web-based advisory decision support system (ADSS) was found to strengthen nurses' feelings of security when they assess patients' care needs, promote their competence and professional pride, and help them manage stress. However, the system also generated difficulties for nurses to adjust to the dynamic ambulance team and revealed a discrepancy between their professional roles and responsibilities to refer patients and provide self-care advice. The nurses thought that the support system facilitated their increased participation and helped them understand patients and significant others by offering transparency in assessment and decision making. Thus, the support system provides nurses with an opportunity to strengthen patients' independence through information and education. However, in the care relationship, nurses worked to overcome patients' expectations.
Nurses using the ADSS increased their security while performing assessments and referrals and found new opportunities to provide information and promote understanding of their decisions. However, nursing care values can be threatened when new support systems are introduced, especially as ambulance services become increasingly protocol-driven.
These findings have implications for nurses' work environments and help them maintain consistency in making medical assessments and in providing equivalent self-care advice when referring patients to the different levels of care. The findings will also impact researchers and policymakers who formulate decision support systems.
Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ).
None.
To outline current knowledge regarding workplace-based learning about health promotion in individual patient care.
Scoping review.
PubMed, ERIC, CINAHL and Web of Science from January 2000 to August 2023.
We included articles about learning (activities) for healthcare professionals (in training), about health promotion in individual patient care and in the context of workplace-based learning.
The studies were evaluated using a charting template and were analysed thematically using a template based on Designable Elements of Learning Environments model.
From 7159 studies, we included 31 that described evaluations of workplace-based learning about health promotion, around a variety of health promotion topics, for different health professions. In the articles, health promotion was operationalised as knowledge, skills or attitudes related to specific lifestyle factors or more broadly, with concepts such as health literacy, advocacy and social determinants of health. We assembled an overview of spatial and instrumental, social, epistemic and temporal elements of learning environments in which health promotion is learnt.
The studies included in our analysis varied greatly in their approach to health promotion topics and the evaluation of learning outcomes. Our findings suggest the importance of providing opportunities for health profession learners to engage in authentic practice situations and address potential challenges they may experience translating related theory into practice. Additionally, our results highlight the need for conscious and articulated integration of health promotion in curricula and assessment structures. We recommend the exploration of opportunities for health profession students, professionals and patients to learn about health promotion together. Additionally, we see potential in using participatory research methods to study future health promotion learning.
Open Science Framework, https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/6QPTV.
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