Aims and Objectives
To enhance the practice of a person‐centred palliative approach in long‐term care.
Background
Implementing a person‐centred palliative approach in long‐term care entails placing residents at the centre of care planning that attends to the ‘whole’ person, rather than prioritising biomedical needs.
Design
We conducted a four‐stage directed content analysis of long‐term care progress notes to meet our study aims and applied the EQUATOR guidelines for qualitative research publication (COREQ).
Methods
We qualitatively analysed 78 resident charts across three long‐term care homes in southern Ontario to capture the extent to which person‐centred care was absent, initiated or implemented in different types of documented care interactions.
Results
Most residents had interactions related to daily care activities (65/78, 83%), social concerns (65/78, 83%) and treatment decisions (53/78, 68%). By contrast, interactions around pain and discomfort (34/78, 44%) and spirituality (27/78, 35%) were documented for less than half of the residents. Almost all (92%) residents had at least one progress note where staff initiated person‐centred care by documenting their preference for a certain type of care, but only a third had at least one progress note that suggested their preference was implemented (35%).
Conclusions
While person‐centred care is often initiated by nurses and other allied health professionals, changes to care plans to address resident preferences are implemented less often. Nurses and other allied health professionals should be encouraged to elicit care preferences crucial for holistic care planning and equipped with the skills and support to enact collaborative care planning.
Relevance to Clinical Practice
Collaborative care planning appears relatively absent in charted progress notes, constraining the full implementation of a person‐centred palliative approach to care.
Patient or Public Contribution
An advisory group consisting of long‐term care resident and staff representatives informed the overall study design and dissemination of the results.