Ana Habjanič

Challenges for institutional elder care in Slovenian nursing homes.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To investigate deficiencies in the institutional elder care that is being offered to residents of nursing homes in Slovenia. BACKGROUND Public criticism of the provision of elder care in nursing homes is growing all over the world, including in Slovenia. Many studies on this issue have been conducted, but seldom have assessed different viewpoints simultaneously. DESIGN A qualitative research design that involved individual unstructured interviews was used in 2007. The participants (n=48) comprised 16 residents, 16 relatives and 16 members of the nursing staff from four nursing homes in Slovenia. METHODS The data generated were subjected to qualitative content analysis. RESULTS The major themes that emerged from this analysis were neglect, unprofessional communication, uncomfortable physical environment and inadequate administration. CONCLUSIONS The participants of the study identified issues in institutional elder care in Slovenia that have also been highlighted by international research. Due to staff shortages, low motivation, insufficient communication skills and inexperience, members of the nursing staff reported that they were not in a position to offer the best possible quality of care. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE To improve the living environment in nursing homes, it is important to consider the opinions of all those who are involved closely in institutional elder care. Correction of deficiencies should be a priority and should result in more engagement with residents.

Are frail older people less exposed to abuse in nursing homes as compared to community-based settings? Statistical analysis of Slovenian data

INTRODUCTION Although international research in recent years has often focused on elder abuse, its extent is not clear in community-based settings and even bigger mystery in nursing homes. BACKGROUND Until now in the literature it has in most cases only been assumed that nursing homes offer better protection from abuse for frail older people. METHODS A cross-sectional research design was applied by use of structured interviews. Those involved were frail older people (n=300) who were in need of some sort of professional nursing assistance. RESULTS Nursing home accommodation was extracted as the strongest predictor, significantly reducing the risk of physical abuse (odds ratio, OR 0.1, 95% confidence interval, 95% CI 0.0-0.3) and financial abuse (OR 0.2, 95% CI 0.1-0.4). Spouses and sons were revealed as the most regular perpetrators of physical and financial abuse. The results showed no statistical significance between settings as predictors of the occurrence of mental abuse (OR 0.9, 95% CI 0.5-1.6). DISCUSSION Results of the statistical analysis add to the general assumption that nursing home accommodation offers protection for frail older people in escaping physical and financial abuse. CONCLUSION In their clinical practice, community nurses should give special attention to frail older people who, besides their healthcare needs, are also heavily dependent in the activities of daily living (ADLs). In order to combat elder abuse, conditions in the family should be regularly verified.

Decision trees-a CMI tool in nursing education

Better health care for all and an overall health care restructuring are two of the most important processes that, in addition to many existing assignments, expose many new tasks and responsibilities for nursing personnel. Each of these responsibilities entails information as input and also generates information as the output, and in the near future it is to be expected that most of the information processing, including data gathering, decision-making support, data mining and information generation will be performed by computers. To cope with this new situation, nurses have to be armed with the proper knowledge, and thereafter the proper education will play a very important role. In this manner, we started an EU project called NICE (Nursing Informatics and Computer-aided Education), one of the main objectives of which is to develop new computer-managed instructional (CMI) tools for nursing.

Teaching of Information Security in the “Health Care and Nursing” Postgraduate program

Informatics plays an increasing role in the area of health care services. Not only will the patient’s satisfaction with the medical treatment depend on the cooperation and communication between the nurse and the doctor, but also on the nurse and her way of dealing with and usage of IT technology. Although having become a part of daily routines in the meantime, the question arises if nurses are aware of the importance of IT technology for their work duties. How many of the nurses will have probably ever thought about the importance and sensitivity of the data they daily use? Without doubt, computer-literacy among members of all professional groups within society has increased enormously in the last years. Nevertheless, especially the area of health care service demands some more specific knowledge and awareness by the concerned staff related to topics of possibilities, benefits, possible mistakes and theirs consequences, especially from the security point of view, including the sensitivity of the working area, as well as ethical issues. The aim of this paper is to present, the postgraduate program in general as well as the actual handling of providing lectures on information security for nurses. Furthermore, the paper will focus on (gained) experience, and the formative assessment of the postgraduate program.