Towards Understanding Nursing Problems in Care of the Hospitalized Elderly

Abstract

This article is based on a paper presented by Dr. Wells at the Canadian Association of University Schools of Nursing Annual Meeting, June 3, 1976 at Laval University. In September 1972 a three year nursing research project began in the Department of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester, England. The study explored geriatric nursing by describing current nursing practice in the care of old people, documenting its constraints, and seeking relevant concepts for the development of a potential model for geriatric nursing. The process of nursing the elderly in one large hospital in northern England was studied to gather data from which implications for improving care to the hospitalized elderly arose. The research progressed through a series of questions : What constraints to geriatric nursing practice exist within the hospital setting? What do nurses know about care of the elderly? How do nurses in geriatric wards describe the hospitalized elderly? What do nurses in geriatric wards feel toward old people? What is the work of nurses in geriatric wards? and, What verbal communication occurs between nurses and patients on these wards? The total research consisted of eight systematic, progressive, and interrelated studies of nursing experience.