The feasibility and acceptability of training volunteer mealtime assistants to help older acute hospital inpatients: the Southampton Mealtime Assistance Study

Abstract

Aims and objectives-To determine the feasibility and acceptability of using trained volunteers as mealtime assistants for older hospital inpatients.Background-Poor nutrition among hospitalised older patients is common in many countries and associated with poor outcomes. Competing time pressures on nursing staff may make it difficult to prioritise mealtime assistance especially on wards where many patients need help.

The impact of trained volunteer mealtime assistants on dietary intake and satisfaction with mealtime care in adult hospital inpatients: A systematic review

“…Of the 14 articles, eight reported research studies of varying quasi experimental design [32,[42][43][44][48][49][50][51]. One article defined itself as both a study and a programme evaluation, but was considered a study in this review due to the scientific nature of the published report [40].…”

“…The number of participants included in nine of the articles varied widely from 8 to 3911 [32,[41][42][43][44][48][49][50][51]; one study and four quality improvement projects did not report the number of patients [39,40,[45][46][47]. In six studies, patients requiring mealtime assistance were specifically identified and recruited, with participant numbers ranging from 8-68 [42,43,[48][49][50][51].…”

“…Publication date ranged from 2002 to 2015, with eight published within the last 5 years [32,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. The setting in thirteen articles was an acute hospital [32,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50], with the remaining study set in a short stay dementia assessment unit [51].…”

“…One article defined itself as both a study and a programme evaluation, but was considered a study in this review due to the scientific nature of the published report [40]. Of the nine research studies, six had received standard research ethics approval [42][43][44][49][50][51], one was exempted by the local ethics board [32] and two did not make reference to the ethical approvals process [40,48]. Four articles were descriptions of service or quality improvement projects [39,[45][46][47].…”

“…The setting in thirteen articles was an acute hospital [32,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50], with the remaining study set in a short stay dementia assessment unit [51]. The UK was the most common location (7 articles) [39,41,[44][45][46][47]50], followed by Australia (4 articles) [32,42,43,49], the United States (2 articles) [40,48] and New Zealand (1 article) [51].…”