Volume 7 (2020): Issue 1 (January 2020)

Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) is dependent on different expectations and communication styles. IPC is a meaningful approach to accomplish treatment goals, especially in patients with delirium. Delirium affects approximately 50 % of patients older than 65 years in acute care settings. The constant attention and effort needed to care for patients suffering from delirium is challenging and cannot be provided by one profession alone. Instead, there is a need for IPC.

This study aims to analyse the structure of IPC in the treatment of patients suffering from delirium.

Data was collected by conducting three group interviews and six individual interviews with members of different professions in an acute care hospital, and analysed by Charmaz's (2014) grounded theory approach.

A model called enabling IPC in delirium management was developed. This model shows how mutual respect and appreciation, being in dialog and dealing with challenges in IPC interact with each other and also affect each other. Mutual respect and appreciation are common baseline values that have a pivotal effect on the dialog between professions and the management of IPC challenges. Being in dialog and dealing with challenges in IPC are essential values for enabling IPC, as well as mutual respect and appreciation.

Mutual respect and appreciation is fundamental for enabling IPC in the treatment of patients suffering from delirium. Interprofessional education, structured interprofessional care conferences and standardised communication can offer opportunities to foster mutual respect and appreciation which, in turn enable IPC.

Older adults in care facilities face a high risk of experiencing depression. The impact that early interventions like biographical work have on the quality of life for older adults in such facilities is unknown.

To develop and evaluate a tablet-supported intervention for biographical work in long-term residential aged care to increase the quality of life for older adults.

The study will be conducted in a randomized pretest–posttest control group design with follow-up testing in group and single settings. Participants will be randomized to the experimental intervention (tablet-supported biographic work) or the control intervention (planned tablet-supported game playing), each guided by senior volunteers. A total of 80 residents and 16 volunteers will be recruited. The primary outcome for the residents and volunteers will be quality of life as measured with the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment-for older adults. Secondary measures will be self-esteem and life satisfaction. In addition, we will examine residents’ ability to communicate and their functional independence.

The first stage of the project involves developing an app. The app is developed in a user-centered, agile development process. It will use multimedia to prepare life history topics and links them to key questions. Next, a workshop is developed for the volunteers who accompany the use of the app in the institutions. During the second phase, biographic work stimulated by the app will be conducted in groups or individually with residents.

This is the first known program tailored to older adults in care facilities and senior volunteers that aims to prevent depression by providing digitally supported biographic work.

Nurses often speak on patients’ behalf and safeguard their safety through their advocacy role. However, some challenges like the negative attitude of team members and lack of institutional support often hamper this role. These challenges have not been well studied in the Ghanaian context.

This study explores the perceived environmental challenges to patient advocacy among nurses in Ghana.

The study was conducted at a regional hospital in Ghana.

Participants were nurses or midwives working in the hospital.

A qualitative exploratory descriptive design was employed in the study of 15 purposively sampled participants. Participants were interviewed individually and data were analysed using content analysis.

The study revealed interpersonal challenges and institutional challenges to patient advocacy, such as hierarchical nurse–doctor relationships and ineffective multidisciplinary team, time constraints and lack of institutional support. Nurses often failed to advocate because they did not want to risk conflict with doctors. Limited interprofessional interaction, suspicion and resentment in the multidisciplinary team negatively affected nurses’ role as patient advocates. Inadequate curricular support for patient advocacy and lack of support for training programmes or to undertake further studies were the additional challenges.

Patient advocacy could be a stressful role for nurses; thus, efforts to strengthen teamwork and increase nurse involvement in hospital decision-making are required.

The findings could influence hospital management policies to enhance stronger interprofessional collaboration, increase opportunities for professional advancement for nurses and nurses’ inclusion in decision-making.

The number of patients depending on long-term invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) has been increasing for several years. Anecdotal reports indicate heterogeneous health structures, opaque patient pathways, nontransparent and sometimes questionable practices in individual areas of care, inadequate quality standards and control mechanisms in Germany. However, there is hardly any empirical data on this topic.

To report findings from a qualitative study conducted as part of a complex research project to assess the appropriateness of care provided to IMV patients in Germany.

Thirteen semi-structured expert interviews were conducted with 22 health professionals providing care for IMV patients. The data analysis was conducted with MAXQDA according to the framework by Meuser and Nagel.

Interviewees emphasized similar healthcare deficits. They considered health providers to be nontransparent and influenced by secondary interests. Quality of care is reported to be jeopardized by shortage of trained staff. Warranty of self-determination and participatory decision-making is not a matter of fact. Clarifying issues of sustaining life, quality of life and shaping the end of life is often ignored. The professionals are familiar with the patient pathways, allocation processes and responsibilities described in existing guidelines, but criticize the fact that they are not sufficiently binding. Accordingly, patient pathways are frequently individual results of experience-based, informal networking, and often left to chance.

The results point to a considerable need for action to reach an appropriate, integrated, patient-centered level of care for long-term IMV patients and ensure its quality.

European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in tertiary education at Universities of Applied Sciences recommend a high level of competence orientation. This can be achieved and evaluated by the definition of Learning Outcomes. Furthermore, these Outcomes can assure a comparison of the level of education after graduation. Efforts should be made to achieve this form of Quality Assurance for the professional education of physiotherapists.

The aim of this paper is to state consensus of the Austrian Universities of Applied Sciences Network for Physiotherapy in Neurology through the definition of shared Learning Outcomes for the field of Neurology for undergraduate physiotherapy students.

Based on the guidelines of the European Qualification Framework (EQF), Physio Austria (Austrian Association of Physiotherapists) published the competency profile for physiotherapists describing learning outcomes of EQF levels 6 as the first study cycle with Bachelor degree. Specific learning outcomes for Physiotherapy in Neurology were added for the further development and differentiated assurance of Quality Standards in coordination with experts from the Universities of Applied Sciences in Austria.

In addition to the Learning Outcomes described in the competency profile of Physio Austria, this consensus paper describes those specifically for the EQF Level 6 of physiotherapy in neurology. Specifications in neurology were made for the following roles: Expert in Physiotherapy, Communicator, Teamworker, Health Promoter, Innovator, Health Professional.

Recommendations for quality assurance in tertiary education are actively pursued across all participating Universities of Applied Sciences. This allows a better comparability of the educational standards in Physiotherapy in Neurology in Europe as well as internationally. This is of great importance for physiotherapists as health professionals.

The shortage of general practitioners in Switzerland requires new ways to ensure primary outpatient health care. The group practice Medbase Winterthur Neuwiesen has been testing the use of Advanced Practice Nurses (APN) and Clinical Nurses (CN) for the treatment of clearly defined cases with minor illnesses for the past two years. In the context of quality assurance, this study examines the quality of treatment and outcome in 60 patients with symptoms of an acute upper respiratory tract infection, half of whom were assigned to a physician and half to an APN/CN

Analysis of the treatment and the outcome of 60 patient files, half of which were randomly assigned to a physician and half to an APN/CN.

APN/CN treated significantly more often according to standardized guidelines than physicians; the outcome in patients treated by APN/CN was slightly better, the difference is not significant, though.

The use of APN and CN in outpatient primary care is possible without compromising the quality of treatment in cases with minor illnesses and clearly defined guidelines for treatment.

The study explored cultural diversity in nursing teams and the internal and external conditions under which cultural differences represent an asset or a liability for these teams.

A qualitative design with content analysis was employed. In total, 18 interviews were conducted with nurses and assistant nurses with experience of working in culturally diverse teams in three distinct clinical settings.

Three domains emerged in the study analysis: triggers, team process and contingencies. Each one encompassed a number of themes related to culturally diverse nursing team processes, triggers of team processes and context-specific contingencies, which represent the complexity of culturally diverse nursing team functioning.

The study suggests how cultural differences in nursing teams can be managed and further explored from within the team and by individuals leading those teams, taking into account the disablers and enablers of their functioning.

Parents of children with life-limiting diseases are central informal care providers. They fill out their role as co-producers of the health care system in different ways, as empirically reconstructed parent type's show. In this article, the heterogeneous social practice of physiotherapeutic care provision is reflected from the perspective of self-regulation theory. The aim is to identify starting points for how parental self-efficacy can be positively influenced by educational support.

The types of parents reconstructed by means of the Documentary Method according to Ralf Bohnsack serve as a starting point for the theoretical consideration. First, the theory of self-regulation and findings from research on increasing parental self-efficacy are presented. In the following, we will discuss how parents of children with life-limiting illnesses regulate themselves or develop self-efficacy when taking over care. Finally, it is shown which findings result from the theoretical consideration for an educational concept development.

This theory-guided consideration of empirically generated parent types shows that their self-perception and situation perception, motivation and level of participation, self-regulation processes and trained self-efficacy vary significantly. There is evidence that parent-oriented information, observation of peers in groups and the possibility of positive experiences have a positive influence on self-efficacy.

These elements should be taken up in the development of educational intervention concepts for this target group and systematically tested for their effects.