NursingLink

New Report Calls for More Formal Training of Patient Caregivers

2008 — A report published as a supplement to the September issue of the American Journal of Nursing (AJN) calls for training of patient caregivers as part of effective patient care.
The first-of-a-kind report, named "State of the Science: Professional Partners Supporting Family Caregiving," is a joint venture of several groups including the AJN, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Foundation, and the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy.
According to the report, most of the 44 million long-term caregivers who provide support for patients older than 18 years in the United States consist of untrained, nonmedical personnel. As Americans live longer and the shortage of healthcare professionals continues, more sophisticated care must be provided by caregivers.
"We have turned over much of the care of persons with acute, chronic, and long-term care needs over to families," said Susan Reinhard, RN, PhD, senior vice president for public policy at AARP, told Medscape Nurses. "They are very willing to step in but are most often not prepared to do so — despite efforts to ask professionals for help and guidance. We cannot send people home from the ER, outpatient surgery, or acute hospital admission with such scant information," Dr. Reinhard said.
"Increasingly, the burden of caregiving is shifting from professional providers to lay people as our population ages and families try to cope with chronic illnesses and dying," said Diana J. Mason, RN, PhD, editor-in-chief of the AJN.
"We're asking family members to do some tasks that even professional caregivers might find challenging, such as providing necessary treatments to an infected wound or trying to bathe a combative older adult suffering from dementia," Dr. Mason told Medscape Nurses. "We have the science to define best practices in these areas, but we're not taking the time to share these best practices with family caregivers."
The report describes several strategies for nurses to help train patient caregivers, provide them with the information and skills needed to deliver care, and improve the quality of their support to patients. The report both outlines the knowledge and skills needed by the caregiving professionals and suggests ways to develop them. It also lays out an agenda for future research on family caregiving.
According to Dr. Mason, nurses can start by partnering with social workers and together asking some important questions, such as:
What is our unit's/hospital's view toward family caregivers?
How is this view borne out in this unit's or hospital's policies and practices related to family caregivers?
How can we integrate into our work a thoughtful but concise assessment of family caregiver needs and preferences for providing care to their loved one?
What would need to happen for our unit or hospital to become recognized as a center of excellence for supporting family caregivers?

A database of tools and resources for both family caregivers and professionals is available on the Family Caregiver Alliance Web site at www.caregiver.org.

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