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Promoting and supporting self-management for adults living in the community with physical chronic illness: A systematic review of the effectiveness and meaningfulness of the patient-practitioner encounter.
There has been a reported rise in the number of people with chronic illness (also referred to as long-term disease) in the Western world. One hundred million people in the United States have at least one chronic condition and in the United Kingdom (UK) as many as 17.5 million adults may be living with chronic disease. New models of care have been developed which recognise the complexities of managing care where there is overlap between the wider community, the health care system and provider organisations, for example, the Chronic Care Model and the Expert Patient Programme. These new models herald a shift away from the idea of chronically ill patients as passive recipients of care towards active engagement, in partnership with health professionals, in managing their own care.Partnership, ideally, involves collaborative care and self-management education. This may support self-care alongside medical, preventative and health maintenance interventions. In this context the nature of the patient-practitioner consultation in promoting self-care takes on a new importance.
The overall objective of the review was to determine the best available evidence regarding the promotion and support of self-care management for adults living in the community with chronic illness during the patient-practitioner encounter. Specifically the review sought to determine: What is the effectiveness of the patient-practitioner encounter in promoting and supporting self-care management of people with chronic illness? What are the individual and organisational factors which help or hinder recognition, promotion and support of chronic disease self-care management strategies? What are the similarities and differences between how 'effectiveness' is defined in this context by patients and different practitioners?
The review focussed on self-caring adults aged nineteen years and older living in the community, with a physical chronic illness, and not currently being treated as an in-patient. For example, people with diabetes, asthma, arthritis, coronary disease, lung disease, heart failure, epilepsy, kidney disease and inflammatory bowel disease. Since patients meet various professionals in a variety of community settings regarding their care, a practitioner in this review included doctors (physicians and General Practitioners), nurses, nurse specialists, dieticians, podiatrists and community health workers.A variety of outcomes measures was used to evaluate effective self-care management. These included physiological measurements such as: HbA1c, blood pressure, body weight, lipids; lifestyle measurements, for example physical activity; and self-care determinants such as knowledge, attitude; and self-care behaviours regarding, for example, diet and physical exercise, and medication. The outcome measures used to explore the meaningfulness of the patient-practitioner encounter, concerned patients', physicians' and nurses' views and perceptions of self-care management and support.The review considered all types of quantitative and qualitative evidence regarding the patient-practitioner encounter where self-care in chronic illness was the focus. The quantitative studies reviewed included systematic reviews, randomised controlled trials (RCTs), quasi-experimental studies, and survey studies.Qualitative studies reviewed included interview designs, vignette technique, qualitative evaluation, grounded theory, and exploratory descriptive design.
The search sought to find both published and unpublished studies between 1990 and 2005. The year 1990 was deemed appropriate since it precedes the development of the Chronic Care Model in which self-management support for people living with chronic illness is heralded as an important part of care-management. An initial search of CINAHL and MEDLINE databases was undertaken to identify appropriate search terms regarding self-care and chronic illness. A search strategy was then developed using all identified MeSH headings and key words and the following databases were searched: - Ovid CINAHL; Ovid MEDLINE (R); Ovid EMBASE; Ovid EBM Reviews (CDSR, ACP Journal Club, DARE, CCTR); ASSIA; SIGLE; Digital Dissertations; and British Library's Zetoc Services.
Thirty-two papers were considered applicable to the review topic from the title and abstract. Two reviewers used the appropriate critical appraisal instruments designed by the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) to assess methodological quality of papers retrieved for review, and agreed on the papers for inclusion. A total of 18 papers reporting 16 studies were included in the review (3 papers reported from the same study): 12 quantitative studies, 5 qualitative studies and 1 study using mixed methods. These papers were heterogeneous in nature, diverse in subject matter and considered a wide range of physiological, psychological, sociological and behavioural self-care outcome measures. Data were extracted by the two independent reviewers using a variety of data extraction instruments developed by JBI.
The heterogeneous nature of the quantitative studies prevented meta-analysis and so these studies are presented in narrative summary. Meta-synthesis of the qualitative data was performed for the six qualitative pieces following the process of meta-synthesis set out in the JBI-QARI software package. The process of meta-synthesis embodied in this programme involves the aggregation or synthesis of findings. Seven syntheses were produced from fifty findings.
For effective patient-centeredness to be established patients should be able to discuss their own ideas about self-care actions, including lifestyle management in an unhurried fashion and with a practitioner who has the time and who is willing to listen. Patient-centred interventions aimed at providers such as patient-centred training and patient-centred materials were shown to have a positive effect on the patient-centeredness of an encounter, but their effect on self-care outcomes was not clear. Interventions directed at enhancing patient participation in the encounter were shown to effect diabetes self-care and self-behaviour.Nurses were shown to have an effective role in educating patients and facilitating adherence to treatment. Patients found nurses approachable and some studies showed that when given the choice, patients were more likely to contact a nurse (than a doctor) regarding their care.Professional interventions such as education, and organisational interventions such as management of regular review and follow up, were shown to improve process outcomes in the management of a patient-practitioner encounter. When patient-orientated interventions were added to professional and organisational interventions, in which patient education and / or the role of the nurse was enhanced, patient health outcomes were improved.The different patient-orientated interventions reviewed highlighted some of the elements that can effectively support self-care management during a patient-practitioner encounter. These are information giving, including the use of a guidebook, the use of care plans, the structure of treatment using checklists, and education and support for staff in 'collaboratives'.Comprehensive, well-paced, user-friendly information is effective in supporting and promoting self-care management in a variety of ways. It informs and reassures patients and their families. It can be used during a doctor/patient consultation to assist communication between doctors and patients, and may help patients feel more involved in their care.For information to effect self-care management, it is important that it is given at diagnosis and from then onwards so that the implications of good self-care management in relation to long term health outcomes are established.Care plans and self-management plans can be useful in facilitating patients' discussion of self-care actions and lifestyle management.Organisational factors affect opportunities for professionals to support patient self-care management. These include time, resources, the existing configuration and expectations of a consultation, the opportunity for open access to appointments, the ability to see the same doctor and early referral to other professional groups.Correlational design studies indicated that individual psychological factors, such as attachment style and autonomy support given to a patient during a patient-practitioner encounter, have a relationship to self-care behaviours and outcomes.Correlational design studies indicated that both general communication and diabetic specific communication used during a patient-practitioner encounter have a positive effect on patient self-care management and outcomes for patients with diabetes.Consultations about self-care for patients with chronic illness tend to be medically focussed and do not always include discussion of patients' views of the routines and self-care actions. This can lead to tension and unresolved issues between the patient and professional.Studies in the context of diabetes self-management reveal that professionals can effectively support patients in a number of ways. These include assisting the orientation of patients towards skills and competencies needed for self-care; sharing knowledge and information; endorsing the patient's view that he or she is the most reliable and accurate source of information about his or her physiological function; trusting the patients' interpretations of their physiological function, and modifying advice in response to patients in accordance with their bodily cues and experiences.
The nature of the patient-practitioner encounter is multifaceted involving patient, professional and organisational factors. Patient-orientated interventions are the most effective in effecting positive self-care behavioural and health outcomes. Patient participation in the patient-practitioner encounter is a key factor in influencing self-care outcomes. Patients' self-care management involves social as well as medical management. Professionals need to recognise and value patients' views and experiences in order to support their self-care management.
Patients need information at diagnosis and from then onwards to enable good self-care management. It is important to enable patient participation during the patient-practitioner encounter.For patients' self-care needs to be addressed opportunities for patients to talk about their diet, routines and lifestyle management need to be incorporated into the encounter. Extra time in consultations may be required. Care plans can help to facilitate this discussion.To support patients with their self-care management, both sharing of medical and nursing knowledge, and recognition of the value of patient's knowledge and experiences are vital.Nurses relate well to patients who want to discuss self-care management.Professional interventions and organisational interventions can improve the management of a patient-practitioner encounter. Patient-orientated interventions in addition to good management of the encounter can improve health care outcomes.
Patient focussed interventions have a positive effect on patient self-care outcomes. Further research regarding patients' self-care and health outcomes and behaviours is needed to establish which patient focussed interventions in particular are effective.Qualitative research has proved to be important in understanding the different ways that professionals and patients approach self-care management during an encounter. More qualitative research would assist an understanding of the processes that inspire effective partnership between patients and professionals to support the establishment of self-care management of chronic illness.
Rees S
,Williams A
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The Effectiveness of Integrated Care Pathways for Adults and Children in Health Care Settings: A Systematic Review.
Integrated Care Pathways (ICPs) are management technologies which formalise multi-disciplinary team-working and enable professionals to examine and address how they articulate their respective roles, responsibilities and activities. They map out a patient's journey and aim to have: 'the right people, doing the right things, in the right order, at the right time, in the right place, with the right outcome'. Initially introduced into the health care context in the 1980s in the US, enthusiasm for ICPs now extends across the world. They have been promoted as a means to realise: evidence based practice, clinical governance, continuity of care, patient empowerment, efficiency gains, service re-engineering, role realignment and staff education.While ICPs are now being developed and implemented across international health care arena, evidence to support their use is equivocal and understanding of their 'active ingredients' is poor. Reviews of evidence of ICP effectiveness have focused on their use in specific patient populations. However, ICPs are 'complex interventions' and are increasingly being implemented for a variety of purposes in a range of organisational contexts. Identification of the circumstances in which ICPs are effective is the first step towards developing hypotheses about their active ingredients and the generative mechanisms by which they have their effects.This review was designed to address a slightly different set of questions to those that typify systematic reviews of ICP effectiveness. Rather than simply asking: 'Are ICPs effective?', our concern was to identify the circumstances in which ICPs are effective, for whom and in what contexts. In addition to identifying evidence of ICP effectiveness, the review therefore required attention to the contexts in which ICPs are utilised, the purposes to which they are put and the factors critical to their success. In framing the review in this way we are drawing on the insights afforded by Pawson and Tilley's realistic evaluation methodology. The underlying rationale for this approach is that if we know and understand how different interventions produce varying effects in different circumstances, we are better able to decide what policies/services to implement in what conditions.
To identify the purposes for which ICPs are effective, for whom and in what contexts;To identify the purposes for which ICPs are not effective, for whom and in what contexts;To produce recommendations on how ICPs should be used in the full range of health care settings.
Types of participants - The review focused on adults and children that accessed health care settings in which ICPs are used.Types of intervention(s)/phenomena of interest - For the purposes of the review, the ICP had to meet the defining characteristics set by the European Pathway Association (EPA):An explicit statement of the goals and key elements of care based on evidence, best practice and patient expectations;Facilitation of communication, coordination of roles, and sequencing of activities of the multidisciplinary care team, patients and their relatives;The documentation, monitoring, and evaluation of variances and outcomes;The identification of the appropriate resources.Here multidisciplinary is taken to refer to the involvement of two or more disciplines.Types of outcomes - Outcome measures were determined by the purposes of the studies selected for review and the type of study participant. Specific clinical outcomes were determined by the group of patients for which the ICP was developed.Types of studies - To address the aims of the review it was necessary to examine evidence of ICP effectiveness across the full spectrum of contexts in which they are in use. In order to keep the study to a manageable scale we limited its scope to randomised controlled trials (RCTs). All RCTs reported between 1980 and 2008 (March) were included in the review. The search was restricted to publications after 1980 coinciding with the emergence of ICPs in the health care context. Non-English language studies were considered for inclusion based on the English language abstract where this was available. Papers were included if an English, German or French translation was available.
The review excluded studies that: SEARCH STRATEGY: The strategy consisted of high precision MeSH and non-MeSH index terms and keywords to ensure that all relevant material was captured (). To avoid any potential replication, initial searches of the Joanna Briggs Institute for Evidence Based Nursing and Midwifery and Cochrane Library databases were conducted to establish that no other systematic reviews existed or were currently in progress. Following these initial enquiries a three step search strategy was designed to identify both published and unpublished studies. Stage one involved searching online databases using preliminary keywords, stage two involved using additional search words identified in the title or abstracts found in stage one and stage three involved hand searches of reference lists, bibliographies and key journals including the Journal of Integrated Care Pathways and International Journal of Integrated Care.
Our search strategy located 4055 papers, of which 31 were retrieved for further evaluation. We critically appraised 9 papers, representing 7 studies. These studies were appraised for methodological quality using the JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Experimental Studies (See ). This appraisal focused specifically upon the reliability and validity of the study method and findings. Two reviewers independently assessed all of the included studies. In cases where reviewers could not reach an agreement a third reviewer was consulted. If disagreement was due to a lack of information then the study authors were contacted for clarification. Following the process of critical appraisal, 9 papers which represents 7 studies, were considered to be of a high enough quality to proceed to data extraction.
As the aim of the review was to capture information on context as well as effectiveness, a bespoke data extraction tool was developed. The tool drew on the information included in the JBI extraction sheet for experimental studies and also incorporated specific information and issues relevant to the purpose of the review including aspects of ICP purpose, information on context and critical success factors ().
Given the heterogeneity of the included studies meta-analysis and/or qualitative synthesis was not possible. A narrative summary of the study findings is therefore presented.
Based on the evidence considered in this review, we conclude that:Based on the evidence considered in this review we conclude that:Active Ingredients - We have argued that ICPs are a classic example of a complex intervention. That is they comprise 'a number of separate elements which seem essential to the proper functioning of the intervention although the "active ingredient" of the intervention that is effective is difficult to specify'. None of the studies included in the review were underpinned by explicit theories of ICPs' active ingredients or their generative effects. Moreover, the information provided on ICP development and implementation processes was varied and in no case was any evidence provided to enable the role of these components of the intervention to be assessed. The interventions described by the studies in the review varied in terms of their key components ().Generative Mechanisms - Although none of the studies explicitly address the question of generative mechanisms, in several cases it was possible to make inferences about authors' implicit assumptions, based on the discussion sections of the papers (). On the basis of the evidence considered in the review we suggest that ICPs can be considered as having a multiple role as directing, coordinating, organising, decision-making, and accumulating devices. In addition, because ICPs accumulate information, it seems reasonable to infer that they also function as 'distributing devices' by circulating information to users of the pathway, although no definitive evidence is provided in the studies reviewed to support this assertion.
Our review indicates that ICPs can have positive effects on service quality and efficiency as a result of their functions. They are effective in supporting the timely implementation of clinical interventions and the mobilisation of resources around the patient without incurring additional increases in length of stay. They also have value in supporting implementation of best practice guidelines and protocols by translating these into a format which is suitable for daily use by busy health professionals, thereby improving inter and intra-professional consensus and reducing unacceptable variations in clinical practice. Because they function as accumulating and distributing devices ICPs may also bring about improvements in documentation, which in turn augments their coordinating effects. They provide a focal point of reference - a common resource - to which various members can refer in order to understand where their role fits into the larger whole and determine what actions are necessary and when.
Recommendation 1: Given the costs of their development, service providers should restrict ICP use to those areas of service provision where there are clearly identified deficiencies in existing care provision and/or where change is required.Recommendation 2: Prior to ICP development, developers should seek to specify how they wish to change practice, and which of the potential active ingredients of ICPs are necessary for this purpose.Recommendation 3: The evidence suggests that the ICP will change practice. It is imperative therefore, that the directions for action embedded in the tool are based on best practice or evidence.Recommendation 4: ICPs can be usefully deployed to make best practice guidelines available to staff in a form that is useable in daily practice.Recommendation 5: In cases where trajectories of care are more variable ICPs need to have greater degrees of in-built flexibility. Moreover, it is important that staff are supported in exercising professional judgement in those cases when adherence to the pathway is not in the individual patient's interest.Recommendation 6: ICP developers should consider carefully the patient population to whom the ICP applies and identify any sub-groups for whom its use may not be appropriate.
Recommendation 1: Primary research is necessary in order to provide stronger evidence of the active ingredients of ICPs, their generative mechanisms and inter-relationships.Recommendation 2: Evaluations of ICPs should specify the ingredients of the intervention, including processes to support development, implementation and sustainability as well as the detail of the ICP artefact itself.Recommendation 3: Evaluations of ICPs need to be underpinned by clarity as to the purposes of the intervention.Recommendation 4: Evaluations of ICPs must include theoretically informed outcome and process measures which take into account the perspective of all relevant stakeholders and the wider system effects of the intervention.Recommendation 5: Evaluations of ICPs should include theoretically informed process outcomes in order to develop understanding of ICP use in practice so that the reasons for behavioural change or its absence are understood.Recommendation 6: Evaluations of ICPs should provide adequate information on the 'control'.Recommendation 7: Evaluations of ICPs should provide adequate information on the local context, taking care to identify critical success factors.Recommendation 8: It is unlikely that ICPs will work for all purposes and in all contexts. Researchers should aim to produce realistic evaluations of ICPs which seek to develop an explanation (and therefore a theory) about how the intervention in question works in particular situations/contexts, by exploring the relationship between context, mechanism and outcome.
Allen D
,Gillen E
,Rixson L
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How has the impact of 'care pathway technologies' on service integration in stroke care been measured and what is the strength of the evidence to support their effectiveness in this respect?
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Across the developed world, we are witnessing an increasing emphasis on the need for more closely coordinated forms of health and social care provision. Integrated care pathways (ICPs) have emerged as a response to this aspiration and are believed by many to address the factors which contribute to service integration. ICPs map out a patient's journey, providing coordination of services for users. They aim to have: 'the right people, doing the right things, in the right order, at the right time, in the right place, with the right outcome'. The value for ICPs in supporting the delivery of care across organisational boundaries, providing greater consistency in practice, improving service continuity and increasing collaboration has been advocated by many. However, there is little evidence to support their use, and the need for systematic evaluations in order to measure their effectiveness has been widely identified. A recent Cochrane review assessed the effects of ICPs on functional outcome, process of care, quality of life and hospitalisation costs of inpatients with acute stroke, but did not specifically focus on service integration or its derivatives. To the best of our knowledge, no such systematic review of the literature exists.
• To systematically review all high-quality studies which have evaluated the impact of care pathway technologies on 'service integration' and its derivatives in stroke care • To examine how elements of service integration are defined in such studies • To examine the type of evidence utilised to measure service integration • To analyse the weight of evidence used to support claims about the effectiveness of ICPs on improving service integration • To produce recommendations for ICP developers, users and evaluators.
Types of participants The review focused on the care of adult patients who had suffered a stroke. It included the full spectrum of services - acute care, rehabilitation and long-term support - in hospital and community settings. Types of intervention(s)/phenomena of interest Integrated care pathways were the intervention of interest, defined for the purpose of this review as 'a multidisciplinary tool to improve the quality and efficiency of evidence based care and is used as a communication tool between professionals to manage and standardise the outcome orientated care' Here 'multidisciplinary' is taken to refer to the involvement of two or more disciplines. Types of outcomes 'Service integration' was the outcome of interest however, this was defined and measured in the selected studies. Types of studies This review was concerned with how 'service integration' was defined in evaluations of ICPs; the type of evidence utilised in measuring the impact of the intervention and the weight of evidence to support the effectiveness of care pathway technologies on 'service integration'. Studies that made an explicit link between ICPs and service integration were included in the review. Evidence generated from randomised controlled trials, quasi-experimental, qualitative and health economics research was sought. The search was limited to publications after 1980, coinciding with the emergence of ICPs in the healthcare context. Assessment for inclusion of foreign papers was based on the English-language abstract, where available. These were included only if an English translation was available.
This review excluded studies that: • focused only on a single aspect of stroke care (e.g. dysphasia) • evaluated ICPs as part of a wider program of service development • did not make an explicit link between ICPs and service integration • did not meet the definition of ICP utilised for the purposes of the review • focused exclusively on the outcomes of variance analysis
In order to avoid replication, the Joanna Briggs Institute for Evidence Based Nursing and Midwifery Database and the Cochrane Library were searched to establish that no systematic reviews existed and none were in progress. A three-stage search strategy was then used to identify both published and unpublished studies (see Appendix III).
Our search strategy located 2123 papers, of which 39 were retrieved for further evaluation. We critically appraised seven papers, representing five studies. These were all evaluation studies and, as is typical in this field, comprised a range of study designs and data collection methods. Owing to the diversity of the study types included in the review, we developed a single-appraisal checklist and data-extraction tool which could be applied to all research designs.(32) The tool drew on the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) appraisal checklists for experimental studies and interpretive and critical research, and also incorporated specific information and issues which were relevant for our purposes (see Appendix VI). This extends the thinking outlined in Lyne et al.(31) in which, drawing on Campbell and Stanley's classic paper, the case is made for developing an appraisal tool which is applicable to all types of evaluation, irrespective of study design. In assessing the quality of the papers, we were sympathetic to the methodological challenges of evaluating complex interventions such as ICPs. We were also cognisant of the very real constraints in which service evaluations are frequently undertaken in healthcare contexts. In accordance with the aims of this particular review, we have included studies, which are methodologically weaker than is typical of many systematic reviews because, in our view, in the absence of stronger evidence, they yield useful information.
Given the heterogeneity of the included studies, meta-analysis and/or qualitative synthesis was not possible. A narrative summary of the study findings is presented.
1 ICPs can be effective in ensuring that patients receive relevant clinical interventions and/or assessments in a timely manner, although these improvements may reflect better documentation rather than actual changes in practice. 2 ICPs can be effective in improving the documentation of rehabilitation goals, documentation of communication with patients, carers (diagnosis, prognosis and follow-up arrangements) and documentation of notification of primary care physicians of discharge. However, this can create additional burdens of work for staff. 3 Early studies of ICP-managed care in the acute stroke context have demonstrated reduced length of stay without any associated adverse effects on discharge destination, morbidity or mortality. These effects do not reach statistical significance, however, and may reflect wider changes in service provision and a general trend towards reduced length of hospital stay. While later studies in the acute and rehabilitation contexts do not reveal any significant reduction in length of stay, they do report greater documented use of certain clinical interventions and assessments, suggesting that ICPs can be effective in mobilising hospital resources around the patient. 4 ICPs implemented in the context of acute stroke care can be effective in reducing the occurrence of urinary tract infections, although we do not know whether this can be attributed to improved service integration. 5 ICP management in stroke rehabilitation may not be flexible enough to meet diverse patient needs and can result in insufficient attention to higher-level functioning and carer needs influencing perceptions of quality of life. 6 ICP management may assist in clarifying role boundaries and a shared understanding of the work, but this can result in some members of the disciplinary team perceiving that their contribution is not appropriately reflected in the documentation. 7 There is some evidence that ICPs may be effective in changing professional behaviours in the desired direction where there is scope for improvement, but in situations in which multidisciplinary working is effective, their positive effects may be limited. Furthermore, it is far from clear what the active ingredients of ICPs actually are. Kwan et al. suggest that it was the process of ICP development that had most impact on behaviours rather than the use of the artefact per se.(20) 8 None of the studies assessed the balance of costs and benefits of ICP use. Therefore, we do not know whether the costs of ICP development and implementation are justified by any of the reported benefits.
Implications for practice There is some evidence that ICPs may support certain elements of service integration in the context of stroke care. This seems to be as a result of their ability to support the timely implementation of clinical interventions and the mobilisation of resources around the patient without incurring additional increases in length of stay. ICPs appear to be most successful in improving service coordination in the acute stroke context where patient care trajectories are predictable. Their value in the context of rehabilitation settings in which recovery pathways are more variable is less clear. There is some evidence that ICPs may be effective in bringing about behavioural changes in contexts where deficiencies in service provision have been identified. Their value in contexts where inter-professional working is well established is less clear. While earlier before and after studies show a reduction in length of stay in ICP-managed care, this may reflect wider healthcare trends, and the failure of later studies to demonstrate further reductions suggests that there may be limits as to how far this can continue to be reduced. There is some evidence to suggest that ICPs bring about improvements in documentation, but we do not know how far documented practice reflects actual practice. It is unclear how ICPs have their effects and the relative importance of the process of development and the artefact in use. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)
Allen D
,Rixson L
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Health professionals' experience of teamwork education in acute hospital settings: a systematic review of qualitative literature.
Teamwork is seen as an important element of patient care in acute hospital settings. The complexity of the journey of care for patients highlights the need for health professionals to collaborate and communicate clearly with each other. Health organizations in western countries are committed to improving patient safety through education of staff and teamwork education programs have been integral to this focus. There are no current systematic reviews of the experience of health professionals who participate in teamwork education in acute hospital settings.
The objective of this systematic review was to search for the best available evidence on the experiences of health professionals who participate in teamwork education in acute hospital settings.
This review considered studies reporting on experiences of registered health professionals who work in acute hospitals. This included medical, nursing and midwifery and allied health professionals.
The focus of the meta-synthesis was the experiences and reflections of health professionals who were involved in teamwork education in acute hospital settings.
The geographical context for this review was acute hospitals in rural or metropolitan settings in Australia and overseas countries. The review focused on the experiences of health professionals who work in acute hospitals and participated in teamwork education programs.
This review considered studies that focused on qualitative data including, but not limited to, designs such as phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, action research and feminist research.In the absence of research studies, other text such as opinion papers, discussion papers and reports were considered. Studies published in English and from 1990 to 2013 were included in this review.
The literature search for relevant papers occurred between 13 September and 26 October 2013. A three-step search strategy was utilized in this review. The databases searched were PubMed, CINAHL, Embase and Scopus.
The standardized critical appraisal tool the Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-QARI) was used to assess the methodological quality of included papers.
Data that included statements and text of interest was extracted from papers included in the study using the standardized data extraction tool from JBI-QARI.
Qualitative research findings were pooled using JBI-QARI. This involved the aggregation and synthesis of findings to generate a set of statements that represented that aggregation.
In total, 116 papers were selected for analysis of full text, 11 papers were selected for critical appraisal and seven papers were selected for data synthesis. This resulted in 44 findings. The findings were assigned to 16 categories based on identified similarities across the papers. The categories were integrated into six meta-syntheses. These were: Meta-synthesis One: It is important to recognize that organizational culture and expectations have an impact on health professionals' participation and experience of teamwork education. Meta-synthesis Two: Understanding how successful teams function is central to the development of teamwork education programs and the experience of participants. Meta-synthesis Three: A health professional's experience of teamwork education will be influenced by his/her starting point of learning. Meta-synthesis Four: Participants highly value teamwork education programs that are implemented by facilitators who create practical authentic learning opportunities and foster reflection and debriefing for participants. Meta-synthesis Five: High fidelity simulation used with specific communication strategies provides a powerful learning opportunity for health professions to practice teamwork skills. Meta-synthesis Six: Participants have increased confidence and are motivated to apply their newly learnt teamwork skills into their daily practice.
The review identified qualitative evidence that can guide organizations and education facilitators in the development and implementation of teamwork education in acute hospital settings. Although the quality of the specific teamwork education programs was an important factor, there were a number of issues that also impacted on the experiences of health professionals who participated in teamwork education programs. These included the context that the program was delivered in, the diversity of health care teams, starting points of individual learners, the type of tools utilized in education programs, the levels of confidence and motivation of learners post training and the opportunity to transfer into practice new learning.
Drawing from the synthesized findings of the review, recommendations for practice have been devised in order to guide the development and implementation of teamwork education in acute hospital settings and to improve the experience of participating health professionals. The Joanna Briggs Institute utilizes Grades of Recommendation to rate a health management strategy in terms of its desirable effects, evidence of adequate quality supporting its use, benefits of use, and the inclusion of patient experience, values and preferences. A strong recommendation has a Grade A and a weak recommendation has a Grade B. The FAME (Feasibility, Appropriateness, Meaningfulness and Effectiveness) scale was used to inform the strength of the following six recommendations for practice from the review: RECOMMENDATION ONE: All members of a team should be encouraged by their organization/managers to participate in teamwork education programs in order to foster a positive culture of learning and teamwork within the team.JBI Recommendation: Grade A. This recommendation is appropriate and applicable to all health professionals in acute hospital settings, is associated with positive experiences for participants of teamwork education programs and has a beneficial effect on participants.
Facilitators of teamwork education programs should understand how successful teams function and consider these factors when planning or delivering training.JBI Recommendation: Grade A. This recommendation is associated with positive experiences for participants and creates a beneficial effect to the quality of a teamwork education program.
Facilitators of teamwork education programs need to explore participant learning needs and their prior experiences of working in teams before implementing teamwork education programs.JBI Recommendation: Grade A. This recommendation creates a beneficial effect to the participants of teamwork education programs and to the quality of education provided by facilitators.
Facilitators of teamwork education programs should provide learning opportunities that are practical, authentic to participants and foster constructive debriefing and reflection.JBI Recommendation: Grade A. This recommendation is applicable to all health professionals and circumstances in which teamwork education occurs, is associated with positive experiences and has a beneficial effect on participants.
High fidelity simulation should be considered in acute hospitals for the training of teamwork skills in addition to clinical skills. Scenarios provide realistic opportunities for participants to practice communication strategies that enhance teamwork.JBI Recommendation: Grade A. This recommendation is applicable to all health professionals and circumstances in which teamwork education occurs and has a beneficial effect on participants of education programs.
Team managers should harness the new confidence and motivation of staff around teamwork skills following participation in teamwork education programs and ensure that there are opportunities in the workplace to apply new skills and knowledge into daily practice.JBI Recommendation: Grade A. This recommendation is applicable to all health professionals and circumstances in which teamwork education occurs, is adaptable to a variety of circumstances and has a beneficial effect on health professional's daily practice of teamwork skills.
In order to strengthen the evidence base about teamwork education in acute hospital settings there needs to be quantitative and qualitative research into:How organizations that have successfully embedded a culture of collaboration and safety in health teams have planned, implemented and evaluated teamwork education programs in acute hospital settings?What are the characteristics of teams that have led to successful participation in teamwork education and positive outcomes for team performance?What are the experiences, training and support provided to education facilitators who successfully implement teamwork education programs in acute hospitals?
Eddy K
,Jordan Z
,Stephenson M
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Behavioural modification interventions for medically unexplained symptoms in primary care: systematic reviews and economic evaluation.
The term 'medically unexplained symptoms' is used to cover a wide range of persistent bodily complaints for which adequate examination and appropriate investigations do not reveal sufficiently explanatory structural or other specified pathologies. A wide range of interventions may be delivered to patients presenting with medically unexplained symptoms in primary care. Many of these therapies aim to change the behaviours of the individual who may have worsening symptoms.
An evidence synthesis to determine the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of behavioural modification interventions for medically unexplained symptoms delivered in primary care settings was undertaken. Barriers to and facilitators of the effectiveness and acceptability of these interventions from the perspective of patients and service providers were evaluated through qualitative review and realist synthesis.
Full search strategies were developed to identify relevant literature. Eleven electronic sources were searched. Eligibility criteria - for the review of clinical effectiveness, randomised controlled trials were sought. For the qualitative review, UK studies of any design were included. For the cost-effectiveness review, papers were restricted to UK studies reporting outcomes as quality-adjusted life-year gains. Clinical searches were conducted in November 2015 and December 2015, qualitative searches were conducted in July 2016 and economic searches were conducted in August 2016. The databases searched included MEDLINE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PsycINFO and EMBASE. Updated searches were conducted in February 2019 and March 2019.
Adult participants meeting the criteria for medically unexplained symptoms, including somatoform disorders, chronic unexplained pain and functional somatic syndromes.
Behavioural interventions were categorised into types. These included psychotherapies, exercise-based interventions, multimodal therapies (consisting of more than one intervention type), relaxation/stretching/social support/emotional support, guided self-help and general practitioner interventions, such as reattribution. : a network meta-analysis was conducted to allow a simultaneous comparison of all evaluated interventions in a single coherent analysis. Separate network meta-analyses were performed at three time points: end of treatment, short-term follow-up (< 6 months since the end of treatment) and long-term follow-up (≥ 6 months after the end of treatment). Outcomes included physical and psychological symptoms, physical functioning and impact of the illness on daily activities. : within-trial estimates of cost-effectiveness were generated for the subset of studies where utility values (or quality-adjusted life-years) were reported or where these could be estimated by mapping from Short Form questionnaire-36 items or Short Form questionnaire-12 items outcomes.
Fifty-nine studies involving 9077 patients were included in the clinical effectiveness review. There was a large degree of heterogeneity both between and within intervention types, and the networks were sparse across all outcomes. At the end of treatment, behavioural interventions showed some beneficial effects when compared with usual care, in particular for improvement of specific physical symptoms [(1) pain: high-intensity cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBTHI) standardised mean difference (SMD) 0.54 [95% credible interval (CrI) 0.28 to 0.84], multimodal SMD 0.52 (95% CrI 0.19 to 0.89); and (2) fatigue: low-intensity cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBTLI) SMD 0.72 (95% CrI 0.27 to 1.21), relaxation/stretching/social support/emotional support SMD 0.87 (95% CrI 0.20 to 1.55), graded activity SMD 0.51 (95% CrI 0.14 to 0.93), multimodal SMD 0.52 (95% CrI 0.14 to 0.92)] and psychological outcomes [(1) anxiety CBTHI SMD 0.52 (95% CrI 0.06 to 0.96); (2) depression CBTHI SMD 0.80 (95% CrI 0.26 to 1.38); and (3) emotional distress other psychotherapy SMD 0.58 (95% CrI 0.05 to 1.13), relaxation/stretching/social support/emotional support SMD 0.66 (95% CrI 0.18 to 1.28) and sport/exercise SMD 0.49 (95% CrI 0.03 to 1.01)]. At short-term follow-up, behavioural interventions showed some beneficial effects for specific physical symptoms [(1) pain: CBTHI SMD 0.73 (95% CrI 0.10 to 1.39); (2) fatigue: CBTLI SMD 0.62 (95% CrI 0.11 to 1.14), relaxation/stretching/social support/emotional support SMD 0.51 (95% CrI 0.06 to 1.00)] and psychological outcomes [(1) anxiety: CBTHI SMD 0.74 (95% CrI 0.14 to 1.34); (2) depression: CBTHI SMD 0.93 (95% CrI 0.37 to 1.52); and (3) emotional distress: relaxation/stretching/social support/emotional support SMD 0.82 (95% CrI 0.02 to 1.65), multimodal SMD 0.43 (95% CrI 0.04 to 0.91)]. For physical functioning, only multimodal therapy showed beneficial effects: end-of-treatment SMD 0.33 (95% CrI 0.09 to 0.59); and short-term follow-up SMD 0.78 (95% CrI 0.23 to 1.40). For impact on daily activities, CBTHI was the only behavioural intervention to show beneficial effects [end-of-treatment SMD 1.30 (95% CrI 0.59 to 2.00); and short-term follow-up SMD 2.25 (95% CrI 1.34 to 3.16)]. Few effects remained at long-term follow-up. General practitioner interventions showed no significant beneficial effects for any outcome. No intervention group showed conclusive beneficial effects for measures of symptom load (somatisation). A large degree of heterogeneity was found across individual studies in the assessment of cost-effectiveness. Several studies suggested that the interventions produce fewer quality-adjusted life-years than usual care. For those interventions that generated quality-adjusted life-year gains, the mid-point incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) ranged from £1397 to £129,267, but, where the mid-point ICER fell below £30,000, the exploratory assessment of uncertainty suggested that it may be above £30,000.
Sparse networks meant that it was not possible to conduct a metaregression to explain between-study differences in effects. Results were not consistent within intervention type, and there were considerable differences in characteristics between studies of the same type. There were moderate to high levels of statistical heterogeneity. Separate analyses were conducted for three time points and, therefore, analyses are not repeated-measures analyses and do not account for correlations between time points.
Behavioural interventions showed some beneficial effects for specific medically unexplained symptoms, but no one behavioural intervention was effective across all medically unexplained symptoms. There was little evidence that these interventions are effective for measures of symptom load (somatisation). General practitioner-led interventions were not shown to be effective. Considerable heterogeneity in interventions, populations and sparse networks mean that results should be interpreted with caution. The relationship between patient and service provider is perceived to play a key role in facilitating a successful intervention. Future research should focus on testing the therapeutic effects of the general practitioner-patient relationship within trials of behavioural interventions, and explaining the observed between-study differences in effects within the same intervention type (e.g. with more detailed reporting of defined mechanisms of the interventions under study).
This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42015025520.
This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in ; Vol. 24, No. 46. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.
Leaviss J
,Davis S
,Ren S
,Hamilton J
,Scope A
,Booth A
,Sutton A
,Parry G
,Buszewicz M
,Moss-Morris R
,White P
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