Patient experiences of acute frailty units within emergency department
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Patient experiences of acute frailty units within emergency departments.
IRAS ID
270423
Contact name
Aidan Dunphy
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Ms
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 20 days
Research summary
Over the last decade health services have begun to recognise that frailty in older people is a condition that may benefit from assessment in a specialist unit. These units are known by various names such as Emergency Care Assessment Units (ECAU) or Elderly Frailty Units (EFU). Although the names may differ their function remains the same, to undertake a full assessment of the older patient following an emergency admission to hospital to determine the best course of treatment. However there remains a lack of information about patient experiences of these units.
This study aims to explore, through in-depth interviews, what the experience of being a patient is like in one of these units.
To be eligible a patient needs to be:Male or Female.
65 years of age and over at the point of admission
Able to give informed consent .
Assessed as being frail according to the “clinical frailty scale” (Rockwood et al., 2005) in patient record.
Admitted to an Emergency care assessment unit.
Being discharged home from the Emergency care assessment Unit.
Patient is judged well enough to participate by clinicians and researcher.REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
19/WA/0333
Date of REC Opinion
22 Nov 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion