The home healthcare nursing services provided to the elderly patients: a systematic review

摘要

Background:Home healthcare(HHC)services entail quality and transitional care offered to patients.Doctors recommend HHC to the elderly patients to manage conditions and improve outcomes outside inpatient setting.The systematic review aimed to assess the home health care nurse services to elderly patients.The question of this study is“what are the home nursing care services provided to the elderly patient.Methods:A systematic review methodology was adopted.A search was conducted on PubMed,MEDLINE,and ScienceDirect using keywords such as“home healthcare”,“nurse services”,“home nurses”,“elderly patients”.The search generated 1829 articles,but 16 were selected for qualitative synthesis for meeting the eligibility criteria.Joana Briggs Institute’s critical appraisal tools helped in the assessment of the primary studies.A data extraction matrix generated themes,while a narrative synthesis presented the studies.Results:The review found administration of HHC nursing services in different settings.The studies confirmed varied nature of HHC,types of HHC services,transitional care,challenges,or barriers of offering HHC,relationships,and decision-making process in offering care to the patients and family.The studies presented HHC as a multifaceted component with diverse impact on the patients and family.The analysis revealed that HHC nurses services served elderly persons as the main target group.HHC faces different challenges,barriers,or obstacles such as work,role conflict,organization,elderly patients,and decision-making.Conclusion and Future Research:The assessment of the HHC nursing services provided to the elderly patients reveals different facets of the healthcare process that reduce readmissions and hospital costs.Further studies could explore the provision of care to other target groups such as middle-aged patients to understand the impact of the services.