What do family members notice following an intervention to improve mobility and incontinence care for nursing home residents? An analysis of open-ended comments.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity of family members' responses to open-ended interview questions about an intervention to improve incontinence and mobility care for their relative in a nursing home.


METHODS
The study was a randomized, controlled intervention trial with incontinent nursing home residents (N = 145), wherein research staff provided toileting and walking assistance of sufficient intensity to significantly improve continence and mobility outcomes in the treatment group. Interviewers posed open-ended interview questions to family members after 8 weeks of intervention to assess if they noticed a difference in care.


RESULTS
Family responses to open-ended questions showed that, compared to the control group, the intervention group noticed significant overall improvement in incontinence and mobility care and in residents' outcomes in mobility.


CONCLUSIONS
Families' responses to open-ended questions were sensitive to improvements in incontinence and mobility care and may provide evidence for important care quality differences that would be missed if only direct satisfaction and discrepancy-based closed-ended questions were asked.
Levy-Storms
Lené
L
Department of Social Welfare, School of Public Affairs, Box 951656, 5226 Public Policy Building, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1656, USA. llstorms@ucla.edu
Schnelle
John F
JF
Simmons
Sandra F
SF
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005242:Fecal Incontinence / Q000451:nursing*; D005260:Female; D006707:Homes for the Aged; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D009732:Nursing Care / Q000592:standards*; D009735:Nursing Homes; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D014549:Urinary Incontinence / Q000451:nursing*; D016138:Walking