Family Dialogue On The Nephrology Ward - Does It Make A Difference And Is It Cost Effective?
Background Patients living with a kidney disease and their families are suffering in terms of reduced quality of life. Studies indicate that health professionals could improve their abilities to work with families.
Qualitative studies indicate that Family Dialogue based on Family Systems Nursing (FSN), which desires to support coping strategies in families through changing the way they experience their health problems, has proved useful in several cases.
Quantitative effect studies are inconclusive, and cost-effectiveness studies are scarce.
Intervention Health professionals from the nephrology ward will undergo either 1 or 3 day course in FSN introducing a
appreciative paradigm, with focus on a narrative and systemic approach. FSN offers specific tools for collaboration with families from short term encounters to planned meetings with the families.
Method Controlled study between intervention ward (nephrology) and comparable ward (neurology) from the perspective of patients and relatives.
Descriptive statistics from pre/post-test of 55 patients and 55 relatives from each ward in connection with the FSN implementation using validated questionnaires: Iceland-
Family Perceived Support Questionnaire and Iceland-Expressive Family Functioning
Questionnaire. Cost-effectiveness studies of the intervention measured on specific
outcomes such as hospitalization time, family functioning, caregiver stress and quality of life.
Results The results could provide an indication of whether family coping and involvement has changed during admission and made a difference for the participants after the FSN implementation, and whether it is financially worthwhile to spend resources on implementing FSN at ward level.
Purpose is to investigate whether the
intervention FSN has an effect on perceived support from health professionals and
family functioning for patients suffering from kidney disease and their families when admitted to the nephrology ward and whether it is cost effective.
Barbara Voltelen PhD, MHSc, RN, Health Sciences Research Center, and Sr. Lecturer, Nursing department, University College Lillebaelt, Denmark (bavo@ucl.dk); Hanne Andersen RN, MPG, Head nurse of acute and medical department, Lillebaelt Hospital, Kolding; Kim C. Houlind, PhD, MHSc, MD, Professor, Chief Physician and Head of Research, Department of Vascular Surgery, Lillebaelt Hospital, Kolding, Dept. of Regional health research, Faculty of Health Science, University of Southern Denmark;
Palle Larsen PhD, MSc, RN, Associate Professor, Head of Research, Health Sciences Research Center, University College Lillebælt, Odense, Denmark
