title: Getting prepared for life at home in the discharge process--from the perspective of the older persons and their relatives.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine how older persons in need of home-nursing care and their relatives experience the discharge process and develop a model that explains the experience.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  The discharge process has well-known deficiencies and is therefore a challenging issue requiring improvement in many countries. Research focusing on patient-centred factors has attracted very little critical attention.
  
  
  METHODS
  Grounded theory was used to analyze semi-structured interviews with 26 older persons and their relatives.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The analysis resulted in a theoretical model that depicts factors determining whether the older persons and their relatives feel prepared or unprepared for life at home at the time of discharge.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The older persons and/or their relatives felt prepared at the time of discharge if their needs were satisfied in the three significant areas of preparation. Not only were the professionals' skills of the utmost importance in preparing the older persons/relatives, but also the latter's own approach if the professionals were unskilled.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A knowledge of the preparation areas and skills can be of use for improving the quality of the discharge process from the older persons' and their relatives' perspective, i.e. through policies, checklists and teaching programmes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Care Science and Society, Center for family and community medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. ing-britt.rydeman@sll.se
authors.forename: IngBritt
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rydeman
authors.forename: Lena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Törnkvist
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D022143:Family Nursing / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005851:Geriatric Nursing / Q000379:methods*; D006701:Home Nursing / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D010351:Patient Discharge; D017060:Patient Satisfaction