This study aimed to explore the nurse's experience of dementia care and to examine the needs for dementia nursing education among nurses working in the general ward of acute hospital.
The research consists of two phases as an exploratory study. Phase ...
This study aimed to explore the nurse's experience of dementia care and to examine the needs for dementia nursing education among nurses working in the general ward of acute hospital.
The research consists of two phases as an exploratory study. Phase 1 involved a literature review on dementia care in acute care hospitals and conducting focus group interviews with clinical practitioners. The focus group interviews were conducted from March 4th to March 8th, 2024, targeting nurses with 1 to 3 years of experience in general wards. Based on qualitative data gathered from the focus group interviews and the literature review, the study explored the dementia nursing experiences of nurses in tertiary hospitals, identifying their areas of responsibility and tasks.
Based on Phase 1 of the research, a questionnaire was developed to assess the educational needs for dementia nursing. In Phase 2, the questionnaire was administered through a survey conducted from March 28th to April 4th, 2024. The survey comprised 150 copies distributed to general wards excluding departments such as pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology, which do not typically handle dementia nursing tasks. A total of 146 surveys were collected, and after excluding 6 incomplete responses, 140 were used in the final data analysis. In this stage, the gap between the performance level and the importance level was assessed. And then the data was analyzed using a paired t-test, Borich's need analysis and The Locus for Focus model to determine the priorities of the dementia nursing educational needs.
The study findings are summarized as follows:
1) The composition areas of dementia nursing care were derived and categorized into 16 core domains, encompassing a total of 60 educational contents.
2) Regarding the educational needs on dementia nursing care, level of the performance was statistically significantly lower in all 60 items compared to the importance level, especially ‘Addressing BPSD’(t=35.219), ‘Responding the needs of Family carers’(t=28.043), ‘Discharge planning’(t=27.261), ‘Preventative Work and Health Promotion’(t=25.93), ‘Understanding Dementia’(t=25.856).
3) According to the results of the Borich’s need analysis and TLFM, ‘Recognising dementia’, ‘Addressing BPSD’, ‘Therapeutic work’ were defined as top-priority content followed by ‘Understanding Dementia’, ‘Responding the needs of Family carers’, ‘Effective Communication’, ‘Preventative Work and Health Promotion’were.
In all these findings will be used as basic data for developing dementia nursing care education programs to improve the quality of nursing practice, and provide the framework for the development and application of learning methods that are needed in the acute care setting clinical field today.