Elderly patients' participation in discharge decision making: 2

This article is the second in a two-part series describing a study that explored patient participation in discharge decision making. The study focused on the participatory relationship between older patients and nurses and was performed in two phases. As reported in the previous article (Vol 5(15): 914-16, 929-32) the first phase involved group interviews with primary nurses from two elderly care units. This article reports the findings of the second phase which involved a series of interviews with five elderly patients during their hospital admission. The data from both phases of the study were analysed using the software package Ethnograph. Unlike nurses, the patients in this study had little understanding of the term 'participation'. They were mainly concerned with being given information and reported having unmet information needs. They felt that they did have a role in discharge decision making but were unable to fulfil it, consequently they relied upon nursing staff to take the lead in the decision-making process.