Exploring care home discharge decision-making
Research type
Research Study
Full title
One chance to get it right: exploring perspectives and experiences in care home discharge decision-making
IRAS ID
223870
Contact name
Gemma Logan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
NHS Lothian
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Moving from home into a care home is a significant decision for the individual and their family and carers. Every year in Scotland over 13,000 people make this decision, just under half of them while they are hospital inpatients. Our previous research, reviewing the case notes of 100 people in our hospital who were discharged to care homes, identified variation in the assessments people received, their experiences and their involvement in the decision. This area has been poorly researched and we do not know how decisions are made to discharge patients directly from hospital to a care home.
Building on our previous findings, we want to explore the experiences of those involved in these decisions, the patient themselves and those with a significant role in the decision-making process – both personally and professionally. We want to describe the factors involved in the decision and how decisions are communicated and recorded.
Eight adult patients admitted to hospital from a non-institutional setting and awaiting discharge to care home will be recruited with consent. Each will nominate a significant person for study inclusion. Members of the MDT will also be recruited to offer their perspectives.
The study will take place in the Medicine of the Elderly and Stroke wards of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the Western General Hospital.
Data will be collected from health records review and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis will take place in two phases: firstly, the data sets will each undergo inductive thematic analysis using NVivo software ensuring that the dynamics of decision-making for each individual are captured. In phase two - analysis will be undertaken across the data sets using framework analysis with an analytic frame. This will allow processes underlying care home discharge decisions to be interrogated, developing understandings from participant's experiences.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 4
REC reference
17/WS/0067
Date of REC Opinion
11 Apr 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion