Registered nurses’ opinions about patient focused care

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate registered nurses’ (RN) opinions about the organisational change to patient focused care (PFC).

Design: A qualitative explorative design and an interview guide with open‑ended questions were used.

Setting: One ward at a university hospital

Subjects: Six female registered nurses

Main outcome measure(s): The interview questions included items about ‘experiences of PFC’, ‘experiences of one’s own professional role’ and ‘opinions about the quality of care in the model’.

Result: All of the interviewed nurses at the ward had overall positive attitudes towards PFC and felt the care model could facilitate nursing practice. The interviewees emphasised, however, that if one is to make a fair evaluation, more experience of working with PFC as well as total implementation of the model is needed. The interviewees did report positive effects of PFC, which they believed gave all employees at the ward greater motivation to work towards continuous development.

Conclusions: The RNs in the present study had overall positive attitudes towards PFC and felt the care model could facilitate nursing practice. The present study illustrates nurses’ experiences of working at a ward that uses PFC as its organisational form, and this knowledge is valuable to nursing managers who are considering organisational changes. The interviewed nurses found that PFC had many advantages and that the organisational form could therefore be suitable in several clinical settings.