Orthopaedic and trauma patients' perceptions of individualized care

Abstract

Individualized care is a universal concept in nursing. An international collaboration of nurses, led by, and funded in, Finland was developed, including Sweden, Greece, USA and the UK, in order to test an Individualized Care Scale (ICS) for cross-cultural comparison. This paper reports the results from the UK survey. The study aimed to employ an ICS to describe orthopaedic and trauma patients' perceptions of individualized care. A total of 159 orthopaedic and trauma patients, aged 18 years or over, admitted for over 48 hours as emergencies or for elective surgery, participated from one hospital in Central England using a two-part ICS. The data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Sixty-three per cent of the patients (n = 82) strongly agreed that it was very important to be treated as an individual or unique person, and 55% (n = 72) experienced this type of care. The lowest rated assessments concerned the support (3.23 +/- 1.15) and perceptions (3.69 +/- 0.98) of personal life situation, and the highest concerned the perceptions of decisional control over care (4.25 +/- 0.72). The longer the patients stayed, the more they perceived individuality in their own care. Those less educated perceived higher levels of support regarding individuality in their care. These results could assist changes to individualized care processes in orthopaedic and trauma wards. Future research should focus on the evaluation of taking into account of patient's personal life situation as a foundation for individualized clinical care.