Author
Listed:
- Elizabeth Lumley
- Catherine V. Homer
- Simon Palfreyman
- Phil Shackley
- Angela Mary Tod
Abstract
Aims and objectives To examine, from the perspective of staff, if obese patients have any additional care needs, and what the impact of these care requirements are on care provision. We have selected obese patients with venous leg ulceration as an example patient population to explore these questions. Background Anecdotal evidence indicates obesity can increase care requirements and have implications for obesity for care provision. However, little research exists nationally or internationally that provides evidence from a health care perspective. Obesity is a contributory causative factor of lower limb ulceration. In addition to affecting the development of venous leg ulceration, obesity may also impact on the care an obese patient may require and receive. Design Qualitative study using semi‐structured in interviews and framework analysis. Methods Interviews were conducted with 18 health care professionals and one focus group with 12 health care professionals who cared for patients with venous ulceration. Data were analysed to identify recurring themes relating to the impact of obesity on care provision. Results This study found that the increasing numbers of obese patients with leg ulcers are currently presenting challenges to care delivery in many different ways. There was an impact of obesity on patient experience in terms of dignity, safety and quality. Data indicated that neither hospital nor community care services were adequately set up to meet the needs of obese patients in general. Conclusion Health care providers need to recognise that increasing numbers of overweight and obese patients are presenting challenges to care delivery. The study also indicated the need for senior strategic leadership in planning for meeting the needs of obese patients. Relevance to clinical practice Nursing is well placed to provide specialist support to co‐ordinate services for obese/oversize patients if a suitable strategic and leadership role is developed. Nurses are used to offering patients help in areas of health promotion such as smoking cessation. Lessons learnt from this area could be applied to help and encourage staff to support patients with weight management.
Suggested Citation
Elizabeth Lumley & Catherine V. Homer & Simon Palfreyman & Phil Shackley & Angela Mary Tod, 2015.
"A qualitative study to explore the attitude of clinical staff to the challenges of caring for obese patients,"
Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(23-24), pages 3594-3604, December.
Handle:
RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:24:y:2015:i:23-24:p:3594-3604
DOI: 10.1111/jocn.13016
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:24:y:2015:i:23-24:p:3594-3604. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2702 .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.