Individualised patient care

Abstract

It is assumed that individualised patient care benefits both patients and nurses. This study set out to clarify what individualised patient care means to nurses and how they practise it as well as how it is experienced by patients. With some exceptions, individualised patient care was not practised widely in the seven wards that were used as case studies. Even in the wards where individualised patient care was more common, there were some examples of bad practice. Factors that facilitated individualised patient care were: the personal qualities of the nurses themselves; a shared understanding among the ward team of the goals of nursing care and what constitutes good practice; levels of staffing and skill mix; and effective leadership and management of nursing work [ NTResearch 1996; 1: 1, 22-33]