Is it time for a comprehensive approach in older home care clients’ care planning in Finland?
Sammanfattning
Background: Home-care services require access to high
quality information. Apart from the provision of right-time
organised planning of care and to document information
about clients’ needs, in home care, the care planning is
intended to facilitate continuity and individual nursing
through nursing documentation of the assessment of the
client.
Aims: The aim was to describe the contents of older
(+75 years) home-care clients’ electronic care and service
plans and to evaluate how the clients’ resources have
been taken into account.
Design and methods: The data were collected from the
care and service plans (n = 437) of home-care
services during July 2010. The data were analysed
by quantitative methods and by thematic content
analysis.
Results: Based on the analysis, medication was the
most reported component in all plans (92.7%); other
commonly reported components were self-care (85.4%)
and coping (78.0%). Components within respiratory, follow-
up treatment, life cycle and health behaviour were
forgotten. Most of the care and service plans were
designed from the home-care professionals’ point of view
but the plans lacked the perspective of older clients.
Conclusion: To be able to promote older home clients’ ability
to live at home, home-care planning needs to be individually
designed and must take into account clients’ needs and
their perspectives regarding meaningful activities and social
relationships. In addition, there is a need to develop a more
comprehensive care planning system, based on the clients’
individual needs and standards of care planning. Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons.