Aim:To scope and explore hydration practices in care homes.Background: Older residents do not regularly consume adequate fluids to support health. Achieving this is difficult with residents who have coexisting health, sensory and functional problems, as well as challenging hydration habits.Design: This project used a sequential exploratory mixed method design to scope and explore existing hydration practices.Methods: Data were collected via two stages. First was a survey of hydration practices. Twenty-nine responses were received from 81 care homes (response rate: 35.8%). Second was the exploration of practitioners' experiences and perceptions of hydration practice via semi-structured interviews (54 staff: 43 interviews). Descriptive statistics summarised the survey findings. Open coding and thematic analysis were applied to the qualitative data, and details of the methods are reported in adherence to COREQ criteria.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.