Post-operative care within 3 months following discharge for hip fractured older people with cognitive impairment: perspectives from family caregivers

• Main Authors: Mei Hsing Shen, 沈美杏
• Other Authors: Y. I. Shyu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/b9x8nv

碩士 === 長庚大學 === 護理學系 === 104 === The purpose of this qualitative study, using a grounded theory approach, was to explore the post-operative family caregiving process and the impacts on family caregivers of hip fractured older people with cognitive impairment within 3 months following discharge. A total of 10 participants were recruited from trauma and orthopedic wards of a medical center in Northern Taiwan. In order to find out the specific experiences of hip fractured old people with cognitive impairment, we recruited 5 family caregivers of older people without cognitive impairment, along with 5 family caregivers of older people with cognitive impairment for comparison. Most family caregiver received three times of face-to-face interviews with participant observations at the time point of the first week, the first month, and the third month after discharge. A semi-structured interview guide was used for the interviews and all interviews were transcribed verbatim. Constant comparative analysis was implemented to analyze the transcriptions. A core category named "safty operations" was generated. It described that hip fractured old people with cognitive impairment and their family caregivers both experienced changes from “chaotic” to “safe and stable” condition during the post-operative family caregiving process. In addition, the functional recovery of the older people was slowly but improved day by day as soon as their safety was ensured. The adjustment of family caregivers of these hip fractured old people with cognitive impairment was triggered by the degree of restoration of the older person in terms of “safty operations”. The findings of this study may provide a reference for development of related interventions and policies to improve the quality of care for this population.