| Summary: | Adaptation to role transitions can have various
outcomes. Health and demographic characteristics as well
as environmental control have been shown to affect the
transition to the role of patient. The acutely ill
elderly's adaptation to the role of hospitalized patient
has not been measured from the elderly patient's
perspective.
This study utilized a random sample of 176
hospitalized elderly medical-surgical patients and the
patients' registered nurses to examine the relationships
among demographic and health characteristics, latitude of
choice and elderly hospitalized patient adjustment.
Patients were excluded who had been in ICU for more than 24
hours, had decreased mental status, or were judged to be
too physically ill to participate.
The study used an adaptation of the Latitude of
Choice Scale (a measure of environmental control) developed
by Hulicka and colleagues, a nurse-rated hospitalized
patient adjustment scale developed by Cicirelli, and an
adaptation of the adjustment scale for patients' self-assessment.
Results from a series of multiple regression analyses
indicate that, taken as a group, neither demographic nor
health characteristics predict environmental control, as
measured by the adapted version of the Latitude of Choice
Scale (LOC). However, one individual health
characteristic, length of time since last hospitalization,
was a negative predictor of LOC. Further, the results
indicate that taken as a group, health and demographic
characteristics, along with patient LOC scores are not
predictive of either nurse or patient-rated adaptation.
The individual health characteristic "patient acuity
rating" did negatively predict both nurse and patient-rated
adjustment scores. Nurse-rated patient adjustment
scores were also negatively predicted by the participants'
prior number of hospitalizations. A paired-t test
indicated that patients rated themselves significantly
better adjusted than did their nurses. This finding was
judged to be clinically unimportant because of the small
real difference in the mean scores. Random-effects ANOVA
found no significant variance between nurses' ratings of
patients. === Graduation date: 1991
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