Nurses' perception and actual practices in discharge planning for a surgical patient

Abstract

The main purpose of discharge planning is to provide continuity of care to patients while being transferred between care settings. Although its importance is widely recognised and acknowledged, it can be seen from the study that discharge planning does not always take first priority. The purpose of this study was to investigate surgical nurses' perceptions and their actual practices in discharge planning. The sample consisted of eight State Registered Nurses who had at least three years of surgical experience. A descriptive survey design was chosen. Qualitative data was collected by utilizing a loosely-structured interview which was recorded and transcribed by the investigator. The data was subjected to latent content analysis. The findings suggest that what the nurses consider discharge planning to be, is only one of the aspects identified in the literature. The planning indicated by some nurses suggests that discharge planning is informal and not structured. A number of themes were identified from the transcripts such as liaison between hospital and community nurses. From the discussion, a number of recommendations have been put forward, such as giving community nurses advanced notice of the patient's discharge and ensuring that community services are in place on discharge thus reducing gaps in the provision of care.