title: Improving food intake in nursing home residents with feeding assistance: a staffing analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recommendations have been made to increase the number of nursing home (NH) staff available to provide feeding assistance during mealtime. There are, however, no specific data related to two critical variables necessary to estimate mealtime staffing needs: (1) How many residents are responsive to feeding assistance? (2) How much staff time is required to provide feeding assistance to these residents? The purpose of this study was to collect preliminary data relevant to these two issues.
  
  
  METHODS
  Seventy-four residents in three NHs received a 2-day, or six-meal, trial of one-on-one feeding assistance. Total percentage (0% to 100%) of food and fluid consumed during mealtime was estimated across 3 days during usual NH care and 2 days during the intervention. The amount of time that staff spent providing assistance and type of assistance (i.e., frequency of verbal and physical prompts) was measured under each condition.
  
  
  RESULTS
  One half (50%) of the participants significantly increased their oral food and fluid intake during mealtime. The intervention required significantly more staff time to implement (average of 38 minutes per resident/meal vs 9 minutes rendered by NH staff).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The time required to implement the feeding assistance intervention greatly exceeded the time the nursing staff spent assisting residents in usual mealtime care conditions. These data suggest that it will almost certainly be necessary to both increase staffing levels and to organize staff better to produce higher quality feeding assistance during mealtimes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geriatrics, Borun Center for Gerontological Research, University of California School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA. ssimmons@ucla.edu
authors.forename: S F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Simmons
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Osterweil
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Schnelle
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004435:Eating; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009735:Nursing Homes; D009740:Nursing Staff; D005791:Patient Care