title: The response of nurses towards the management and teaching of patients on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD).
abstract: The aim of this paper is to shed some light on the way trained nurses responded to the challenge of teaching patients to manage life on Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD). This topic is of interest since nursing skills and knowledge are central to the successful management of patients on CAPD. More importantly, the treatment has the potential to keep patients alive who would not previously have been treated. Hence the assumption underpinning this work is that the opinions which nurses hold regarding this form of treatment may in due course influence its future. The data on which this paper is based were collected by means of participant observation over a period of nine months on one male and one female medical ward. Supplementary data were collected during this time at the out-patient clinic and at multidisciplinary CAPD meetings. The findings reported here are impressionistic and hypothesis-generating, but nevertheless they do provide sound insights into the way nurses reacted to patients on this new form of treatment. The type of patient selected for treatment and the ward workload were found to be the most influential factors in the way nurses regarded CAPD patients. It seemed that patients were viewed as 'members' of a collectivity rather than as individuals. Hence the job of the nurse was to rationalize competing demands on her time. Our data suggest that nurses viewed CAPD patients as generating 'extra work' and these patients were more likely to be viewed unfavourably.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008297:Male; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000523:psychology*; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010531:Peritoneal Dialysis, Continuous Ambulatory / Q000451:nursing* / Q000523:psychology; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology; D012648:Self Care; D013663:Teaching