Organisational culture and nutritional care: Version 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A study investigating the impact of organisational culture on nutritional care in hospitalised patients
IRAS ID
246624
Contact name
Gladys Yinusa
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Bournemouth University
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 30 days
Research summary
What is the organisational culture within which good nutrition and hydration are delivered to older hospitalised acute in-patients and what strategies can be used to improve patient’s nutritional care? These are the questions the study seeks to explore. They are relevant because fundamental to good health and wellbeing is having good levels of nutrition and hydration, particularly for patients in hospital.
Undernutrition can affect anyone but with an increasingly ageing population, older people over the age of 65 are more at risk. The provision of good nutritional care is an important aspect of patient care and recovery. However, this still remains a challenge for busy hospital staff. Managing nutritional problems requires a comprehensive interdisciplinary and multilevel approach to meet the complex needs of older patients. Sparse evidence currently exist around the impact of organisational culture (‘the way we do things’) in the provision of good nutritional care.
This study refers to the term ‘nutritional care’ to include a patient-centered care based on their nutritional needs and a coordinated approach of delivering food and drink to patients by health staff and volunteers. The objective of this project is to collaborate with staff and patients and/or relatives to share and explore ideas for improvement where needed. Hence, an action research (AR) approach is adopted for this study. This approach promotes collaboration, participation, empowerment, and the ownership of change by engaging participants as co-researchers to address the aim of this project.
This study will be conducted in a large NHS Trust focussing on wards from the Older Person’ Medicine Directorate (OPM). The study is scheduled to start as soon as ethical approval has been granted (approx. September 2018), to be completed by September 2020.REC name
London - Stanmore Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/1446
Date of REC Opinion
23 Aug 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion