ENROLLED NURSES’ PERCEPTIONS OF PROVIDING NUTRITIONAL CARE TO ELDERLY HOSPITALISED PATIENTS: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Abstract

Aim: To explore enrolled nurses’ perceptions on providing nutritional care to elderly hospitalised patients. Background: Malnutrition is a prevalent problem among elderly hospitalised patients in Singapore. The number of elderly hospitalised patients is expected to increase as Singapore progresses towards an ageing population. This might intensify the problem of malnutrition in acute care settings. Enrolled nurses are considered the main providers of nutritional care, however no previous local study had investigated nurses’ perceptions on providing nutritional care to elderly patients. Existing Western literatures may have limited transferability to our local context. Methods: This is a descriptive qualitative study where data was collected through individual face-to-face semi-structured interviews using an interview guide. We used purposive sampling of 15 enrolled nurses working in medical or geriatric wards of a local acute tertiary hospital. Content analysis was conducted simultaneously with data collection. Recruitment stopped when data saturation was achieved. Results: Four main categories: “Enrolled nurses’ critical role in providing nutritional care”, “Perceived enablers in nutritional care”, “Perceived challenges in nutritional care” and “Proposed strategies to improve nutritional care” emerged from the content analysis. Conclusion: Enrolled nurses who perceived their nutritional care roles to be critical would be more amenable to involve in future changes in nutritional care. Improvements in nutritional care could be developed from the perceived enablers, challenges and strategies proposed by the enrolled nurses themselves. Implications to practice: Our study findings provide useful information for health institutions to review current nutritional care provision. Enrolled nurses could be equipped to take on expanded roles to facilitate in timelier nutritional care and better management of malnutrition among elderly hospitalised patients in local acute care settings.