Family Participation in Ghana Hospital Care

Michele van Vugt

Status: Completed

Conditions: Hospitalized Patients

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06632288

FPGHMM

Details and patient eligibility

About

This mixed methods study aims to understand family care participation in the adult medicine wards of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Ghana. The main questions it aims to answer, from the perspective of the patient, family caregiver, nurse, doctor, ward assistant, and hospital administrator, are:

1. What is the role of the family caregiver in hospital care?
2. What is the perceived effect of family participation in hospital care?
3. What are the barriers and facilitators experienced in family participation?
4. What are suggestions for family participation interventions?

These questions will be answered with three study arms:

1. A prospective observational cohort (population: patients and family caregivers)
2. A time and motion study (population: nurses and doctors)
3. Interviews and focus group discussions (population: patients, family caregivers, nurses, doctors, ward assistants, and hospital administrators)

Enrollment: 170 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Prospective Observational Cohort

• Inclusion Criteria

  • Population
  • Patient: Admitted to the ward (in-patient)
  • Family caregiver: caregiver providing care at the bedside of the patient on the ward
  • Environment: Admitted to a medicine ward of KBTH
  • Admission time: Admitted in the last 48 hours
  • Adult: ≥18 years

• Exclusion criteria

  • Admission time: Planned discharge or transfer within the first 24 hours of admission
  • Child: <18 years
  • Previously enrolled in this study arm
  • No consent given

Time and Motion

• Inclusion Criteria

  • Population: Nurses and doctors
  • Environment: Working in a medicine wards of KBTH

• Exclusion Criteria

  • Population: <6 months of work experience on a medicine ward of KBTH
  • Previously enrolled in this study arm
  • No consent given

Qualitative (interviews and focus group discussions)

• Inclusion Criteria

  • Population
  • Patient: Admitted to the ward (in-patient)
  • Family caregiver: Caregiver providing care at the bedside of the patient on the ward
  • Health workers: Nurses, doctors and ward assistants
  • Hospital administrator: Managers and professors
  • Environment
  • Patient: Admitted to a medicine ward of KBTH
  • Family caregiver: Caring for their relative on a medicine ward of KBTH
  • Health worker: Working on a ward medicine of KBTH
  • Hospital administrator: Responsible for care delivery of a medicine ward of KBTH

• Exclusion Criteria

  • Population
  • Patient: Unconscious or unable to participate in a conversation
  • Family caregiver: Unable to leave the patient for reasons of safety
  • Health worker: <6 months of work experience on a medicine ward of KBTH
  • Hospital administrator: <6 months in a management role of a medicine ward of KBTH
  • Admission time
  • Patient: Admitted <48 hours
  • Child: <18 years
  • Previously enrolled in this study arm
  • No consent given

Trial design

170 participants in 3 patient groups

Prospective Observational Cohort

Description:

Patient and family caregiver dyads will be recruited for a prospective cohort observation for at least 24 hours and a maximum of seven days. At inclusion, baseline and self-reported data from admission until inclusion will be collected. After inclusion, data will be collected every 24 hours on self-reported outcomes of the last 24 hours. Patients and family caregiver dyads will be followed until discharge, transfer to another department, death or a maximum of seven days of follow-up. If dyads stay longer than seven days, daily follow-up is ended and they are called once 14 days later to collect outcome data.

Time and Motion

Description:

Nurses and doctors will be recruited for time-and-motion observations by a trained non-participant observer during their shift on the medicine ward. Observers will use a REDCap to record where, what, for how long and how health workers perform tasks and interactions during their shifts. Observations will take place in sets of two hours each. Approximate equal amounts of observations will be done on all medicine wards. Observations will occur on different days of the week, at different shifts during the day, and at different times during a shift to collect data from different care contexts. Baseline data of the shift is recorded at the start of the observation.

Qualitative

Description:

The qualitative arm of the study involves interviews and focus group discussions with patients, family caregivers, nurses, doctors and hospital administrators. The FGDs and interviews will be performed in English, Twi or Ga by a local researcher experienced in qualitative research. An interview guide is used to define themes for the conversations, however, the interviewer is encouraged to follow the flow of the conversation by changing the order of topics or asking additional questions. The main themes of the interview guide are (1) the role of family participation in hospital care, (2) the perceived effect of family participation, (3) the barriers and facilitators for family participation in hospital care, and (4) the opportunities for improving family caregiver participation in hospital care.