Individuell vårdplanering — Hur ser det vetenskapliga underlaget ut?

Abstract

With the increasing emphasis on evidence-based health care, the scientific support for various interventions often comes into focus when resources are allocated. For nursing care, it is essential that quality of scientific evidence for various interventions is high. As a pilot project, we reviewed the published literature on one approach to nursing care, namely individual patient care planning. Original observations on this and closely related topics were found to be published in 36 articles. There were no randomized trials, and a comparison of the new method vs. the conventional approach was made only in a minority (16) of the studies. Seven of these used contemporary comparisons. The methodological approach was, with one exception, quantitative. The most frequent end-points concerned the documentation process as such and the attitudes and experiences of the nursing staff, whereas the effects for patients were reported more seldomly. We conclude that there is much room for improvement of the quality of scientific documentation when new nursing care methods are introduced.