Abstract
Introduction
Repositioning practice is an essential pressure ulcer prevention intervention that has emerged in the history of nursing. Numerous terms are employed to indicate its meaning, such as turning, positioning, or posturing. However, there is no available analysis that distinguishes these terms or analyzes repositioning practice attributes.
Objective
To analyze repositioning practice as a concept of bedridden patients in hospitals by combining methods from Foucault's archeology of knowledge and Rodger's concept analysis.
Concept Description
Repositioning practice passes through three eras: classical, modern, and research. The repositioning practice is “turn a bedridden patient in a harmonized way and ends with anchor and documentation.” The analysis concludes seven attributes for the repositioning practice: pre-turn, assessment, turn, harmonization, anchor, documentation, and time. The analysis assumes bedridden patients, and assigned nurses on duty are the antecedents. Moreover, the main consequence is pressure ulcer prevention, while patient safety and quality of care are the secondary consequences.
Discussion
Repositioning practice understanding has grown with time. Each era has added to or removed from nursing's understanding for repositioning practice until it appears as it now. The current analysis expects further development in repositioning practice understanding and applications.
Conclusion
Repositioning practice is an important nursing intervention and has shown a dynamic movement over history. It is expected that this dynamic will continue in the future.
Introduction
A pressure injury, pressure ulcer, or pressure sore refers to cellular death due to pressure and shear (Gefen, 2018). Experts have suggested a skin assessment (Kim et al., 2018), repositioning practice, offloading mattresses, nutritional support, and skincare (EPUAP/NPIAP/PPPIA, 2019) to prevent it. Even though evidence shows positive consequences from these measures in prevention (Gunningberg et al., 2017; Renganathan et al., 2018; Sving et al., 2014; Webster et al., 2017), repositioning practice has faced challenges related to its definition.
Nurses have been practicing repositioning for more than 200 years. Nevertheless, the evidence shows disagreements in defining repositioning either based on frequency (Jocelyn Chew et al., 2018), quality (Gunningberg et al., 2017), techniques (Weiner et al., 2017), or even the used term (Jocelyn Chew et al., 2018). However, it is used in combination with the term “turn,” such as “repositioning and turning” (Kozier et al., 2018) or “turning and repositioning” (White, 2011).
Nurses are receiving contradictory information about the repositioning practice. It starts from time (either every two, three, or based on the patient's condition) and passes through all attributes, which negatively impact the compliance. For instance, reports indicate that only 40% of patients needing repositioning are treated appropriately (Schutt et al., 2018). Furthermore, in India, a study found that 70% of patients did not get the required level of repositioning practice (Renganathan et al., 2018). Similar results have been obtained in Belgium (Beeckman et al., 2011), Sweden (Källman et al., 2016), Egypt (Ali et al., 2018), China (Feng et al., 2016), Australia (Chaboyer et al., 2016), Hong Kong (Kwong et al., 2016), and the Netherlands (Meesterberends et al., 2013). No one can compare these results or evaluate the improvement strategies among those studies without standardizing the intended meaning. Therefore, repositioning is a cornerstone in the ulcer prevention (Gefen, 2018) and crucial to the patient safety (Duncan, 2007). Standardizing the concept is a beneficial aspect to nursing science.
Objectives
The current paper applied a hybrid analysis approach that utilizes the archeology of knowledge exploration (Gutting, 1989) and Rodger's evaluation concept analysis (Tofthagen & Fagerstrøm, 2010) to clarify the contemporary meaning of repositioning. Moreover, the current paper presents the repositioning as performed by nurses for pressure ulcer prevention. Even though it might be performed by others or for different reasons such as grooming or feeding, the main concern is done by nurses or under nurses’ supervision for pressure redistribution to achieve ulcer prevention (White, 2011). Therefore, the aim is to analyze repositioning in the nursing context.
Literature Review
A literature search was conducted using the PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, and Google Scholar databases, together with the E-library database of Chulalongkorn University. Moreover, there was a shelf search of the nursing textbooks available in the library of Chulalongkorn University. The terms “repositioning,” “positioning,” “turning,” and “move out” were searched for in the keywords and titles of articles. Searchers were performed in April 2021, and two independent investigators conducted the article selections based on presenting the following inclusion criteria: (a) definitions and attributes of repositioning, (b) antecedents, consequences, and empirical evidence of repositioning, and (c) published in English. The exclusion criteria were: (a) letters to the editors, (b) non-peer-reviewed articles, (c) commentaries, (d) discussing the repositioning out of pressure ulcer prevention context, and (e) discussing the repositioning performed by non-nursing personnel or for other than pressure ulcer prevention purpose. Fifty-six out of 176 potential references were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. All of the authors performed the screening. First, the researchers checked for duplicate references and studies conducted on a different topic. Then, the title was screened for its inclusion of at least one of the search terms (“repositioning” or “positioning” or “turning” or “move out” and “patients”). Finally, references were screened against the exclusion criteria. The references that were not written in English were also excluded.
A total of 53 literatures were analyzed and divided become three groups, which included classical era (Basil, 1888; Bradford, 2016; Domville, 1881; Elliot, 1896; Nightingale, 1860; Rogers, 1849; Sanders, 1916; Scanlan, 1886), modern (Bardsley et al., 1964; Bliss et al., 1967; Burston et al., 1950; Carpendale, 1974; Cope, 1939; Exton-Smith, 1961; Matheson & Lipschitz, 1956; Newell Jr et al., 1970; Silver, 1967; Souther et al., 1973), and research (Beeckman et al., 2013; Berman et al., 2010; Bours et al., 2002; Carpenito, 2013; DeWit & Williams, 2013; Diepenbrock, 2011; Eckman & Aldinger, 2013; EPUAP, 2009; EPUAP/NPIAP/PPPIA., 2019; Hall & Clark, 2016; Jocelyn Chew et al., 2018; Kozier et al., 2018; Langemo et al., 2015; Lewis et al., 2016; Lynn, 2010; Lynn, 2018; Manderlier et al., 2017; Miles et al., 2013; Mogotlan, 2015; Moore & Cowman, 2015; Moore et al., 2011; Morton et al., 2017; NPUAP/EPUAP/PPPI, 2014; O’Neil, 2004; Potter et al., 2013; Rhoads & Meeker, 2008; Saliba et al., 2003; Samuriwo & Dowding, 2014; Soban et al., 2011; Springhouse, 2006; Tayyib & Coyer, 2017; Tayyib et al., 2016; Treas & Wilkinson, 2012, 2013; White, 2011; Wilkinson & Van Leuven, 2016; Yarkony, 1994).
Authors agreed to point out these epistemological events as follows; the year 1930 is the transition between the classical to modern era. That was due to shifting the nature of ulcer development understanding, as characterized by shifting the used expression from bedsore to be pressure sore. Therefore, the classical era ended in 1929. The modern era started in 1930 and ended by inventing the first classification system for pressure ulcers in 1974 (Shea, 1975). The classification still influences the modern classifications until nowadays. That classification opens the gate for massive studies in the field of pressure ulcer prevention (including repositioning). At that time, a panel of experts (EPUAP/NPIAP/PPPIA, 2019) proposed improvements for pressure ulcer understanding (Kottner et al., 2020), which influenced changes in the understanding of the nature of repositioning (Foucault, 2002). Authors assume that this period ended in 2020 due to proposed changes in repositioning techniques based on the presence of the last pandemic (Moore et al., 2020).
Concept Description and Model
Literature that compound these words are textbooks used in teaching and hold in the title “fundamental of nursing” (Burton & Ludwig, 2014; DeWit & Williams, 2013; Kozier et al., 2018; Nugent & Vitale, 2014; Potter et al., 2013; Suresh, 2017; Wilkinson & Van Leuven, 2016; Wilkinson, 2016; Yoost & Crawford, 2019) or “foundation of nursing” (Cooper & Gosnell, 2014; White, 2011). Therefore, passing these terms from writing and several revisional rounds reveals that the ambiguity of defining repositioning (or mixing it with turning) might be a stream in nursing science. Nevertheless, it appears as moving, positioning, and changing patient posture to refer to the same meaning (Kozier et al., 2018).
Repositioning practice specifies the behavior of repositioning. Therefore, instead of using repositioning expression, which might refer to the frequency (Jocelyn Chew et al., 2018) of turn or duration between each performance (Hanna et al., 2016), authors agreed that repositioning practice specifies the actual performance (Avsar et al., 2019).
The analysis divided the historical period based on the changes in the preconceptual level. The preconceptual level was attribution, articulation, designation, and derivation of the context (where the concept belongs). Foucault believed that the changes in the preconceptual level depend on how people understand particle expression or deal with it. Understanding a concept is influenced by how people preserve it (Foucault, 2002).
Classical Era Until 1929
Florence Nightingale adopted “moved about” (Nightingale, 1860) to refer to repositioning practice. While others utilized other terms such as; changed position, turn, moving, and turning (Scanlan, 1886) which shows disagreements on the terms for descripting the intervention. Conceptualizing the content meaning shows that a patient who is unable to move will have bedsores in the forms of successions. Therefore, nurses have to do the intervention “move out” (Nightingale, 1860). If the nurse fails to do the “move out,” the patients will have pressure ulcer “bedsore” (Nightingale, 1860). For the nature of relation “
The second aspect of archeology is in the form of the “
Modern Era (1930–1974)
The aim of repositioning practice was exposing the skin to light, which (the light) would prevent pressure ulcers (Grossman & Lightfoot, 1945). The analysis explicates that repositioning practice intends to be a practice (Bliss et al., 1967). It appeared as a teamwork intervention, not an individual task (Carpendale, 1974; Exton-Smith, 1961). Also, the frequency of turn was within two hours, which appears quite obvious (Silver, 1967) with scientific rationalizations (Bardsley et al., 1964; Exton-Smith, 1961; Matheson & Lipschitz, 1956). Also, documentation is appressed as an essential element (Silver, 1967).
Literature mentioned the need to offload the pressure by pads, mattresses, or other devices (Bliss et al., 1967), which implicitly proposes reducing the repositioning practice frequency every two hours. Also, the literature did not describe the techniques for fixing the patient's posture “after the turn.” Trumble (1930) described all aspects of repositioning practice except the fixation. Finally, literature eliminates expressions that blame nurses for pressure ulcer development, which means a transfer in the field of memory “disappears.”
Research Era (1975–2020)
In 1975, pressure ulcers were classified based on the anatomical aspect (Shea, 1975). Later, the risk assessment tools (Braden et al., 1987) generated revolutionary thoughts in pressure ulcer prevention. Then, the advisory panels were founded which transferred the concern to the global level (Moore, 1988). All those changes remodified pressure ulcer prevention and, as a result, impacted repositioning practice. Those reformations were characterized by clinical, academic, and organizational significant changes in pressure ulcer prevention. The endpoint was chosen as 2020, where the coronavirus disease 2019 (Tripathi et al., 2020) impacted pressure ulcer prevention, which includes the repositioning practice (Moore et al., 2020). Until the time of analysis, this consequence is not precise yet.
The analysis noticed the presence of colored pictures combined with written texts (Burton & Ludwig, 2014; Kozier et al., 2018; Nugent & Vitale, 2014; Potter et al., 2013; Wilkinson & Van Leuven, 2016; Yoost & Crawford, 2019). That denotes that the words cannot explain the repositioning practice alone and so the photos were required (Moore et al., 2015). References also focus on nurses’ compliance (Bergstrom et al., 2013; Cyriacks & Spencer, 2019; Jocelyn Chew et al., 2018), quality (Schutt et al., 2018), and its consequences (Moore et al., 2015).
On the other hand, literature had not shared a similar “

Conceptual diagram.
Attributes
The analysis applied summative content analysis for the references from the last research era to explore the attributes, assuming that the knowledge accumulated appears in the work of literature at that particular point. The analysis showed that 577 different locations highlight a repositioning practice component. These points are categorized for 72 codes to generate seven defining attributes as summarized in Table 1.
Summative Content Analysis for Repositioning Practice Attributes.
Issues related to time appear in 117 different locations. Those were categorized over ten codes as follows: within 30 min, within one hour, every one to two hours, every two hours 33 times, within 2 to 4 h eight-times, every 4 h, based on individualized plans, and two locations mentioned based on time reminding, and there were 36 locations, which mentioned the time with no specifications for the duration. The frequency of all these points equals 20.28% (the detailed information can be seen in Supplementary File Table S7).
Antecedents
Antecedents are the pre-request issues to actualize the construct “Repositioning practice.” From the literature, it appears that repositioning practice required having a patient at risk for pressure ulcer development (White, 2011). Also, it required someone to perform the procedure (Jocelyn Chew et al., 2018). As the analysis focused only on cases that nurses performed and excluded the literature arguing about others, competent nurses are assigned to deliver the care for that patient who exists physically near the nurse. Furthermore, satisfying the harmonization required secondary nurse(s) that help in the performance. Absence of these preconditions might not satisfy the intended meaning of the repositioning practice as presented above. Figure 1 shows the antecedents’ relations with the central construct.
Consequences
The consequence of the repositioning practice is evident. If the repositioning is performed, it will directly enhance pressure ulcer prevention. Also, it will impact the quality of care (Duncan, 2007), patient satisfaction (Kalisch et al., 2014), and patient safety (Kalisch et al., 2011), as it appears in Figure 1.
Model case
Ms. X is a nurse in the ward. She is assigned to a bedridden patient. Ms. X realizes that the patient is unable to turn or move. At 08:00, Ms. X planned the turning procedure for the patients every two hours. Ms. X performed the turning with the help of her colleagues. Ms. X rolled the patients according to the protocols and followed the steps one by one to change the posture. Ms. X anchored the patient to the new position. After that, Ms. X documented the procedure done. She recorded the help by other nurses’ initials. Also, Ms. X documented the coming time and suggested the new posture. This procedure was repeated by the same techniques for all days, and the patient did not develop any pressure ulcers.
Discussion
The current paper aims to analyze the repositioning practice as concept of bedridden patients during hospitalizations. The current analysis displays the defragmentation of the terms, descriptions, and included attributes. The current analysis shows the importance of turn as the main component, but turn alone did not satisfy the purpose of the interventions in assuring the offloading. Therefore, using the term “turn” would not refer to the repositioning practice. Moreover, the data taken from nurses’ notes would be limited in reflecting the repositioning compliance, as it did not tell the evaluators about presenting other attributes rather than the documentation. Thus, it highlights the need for a suitable measurement approach for measuring performance.
The impact of repositioning practice is understood by its absence. Several studies express the impact of long-standing pressure on the tissues, leading to pressure ulcer development (Gefen, 2009), so lacking repositioning practice increases the chance of pressure ulcer development. Therefore, the realization of repositioning practice leads to the absence of pressure ulcers (or at least minimizes its chance) (Chaboyer et al., 2016). That minimization for pressure ulcer development impacts the patient, health organizations, and quality of care in general.
Pre-turn is the preparation of the nurse and the patient. It is the time between deciding to reposition and making the turn. Second, repositioning practice required nurses to assess patients that included assessing the patient's capacity to assist during the turn, assessing pressure ulcer risk areas, assessing turn restriction, and assessing skin condition. Third, change the patient's posture by holding and turning him/her or repositioning (Lynn, 2010). Four, harmonization is needed when a repositioning practice is done if it takes more than one person to achieve. In some conditions, anchor is used to help facilitate the pressure distribution (Gefen, 2009) and revascularization of the pressed organs (Schwartz & Gefen, 2019).
Nurses have to record their actions. The documentation would help the nurse to evaluate their performance. It will become worse or better in a matter of time. The last and the most crucial factor is time. Time for giving repositioning practice is a conflicting issue in the literature. It could be 30 min or more than six hours. The current analysis clarifies the structure of repositioning practice that might be used in education, training, measurements, or improvement projects. In assuring the proper descriptions for the repositioning practice, applicable sharing of the study result will have much potential.
Implications for Practice
The current study impacts the state of nursing science over three levels: nursing administration, nursing education, and nursing research. First, nursing leaders are responsible for ensuring nurses’ compliance in repositioning practice for immobilized patients. Leaders applied several projects and approaches to enhance nurses’ performance, but the lack of unified description for the concept limits their abilities for improvements.
In addition, repositioning practice concept analysis clarifies the critical boundaries between repositioning practice and related concepts, such as turn. These clarifications enhance the description for the nursing students. Last but not least, the current analysis unified the description for the repositioning practice. Experts will generate comparative studies and evaluate the consequence of the any related interventions focused on improving the repositioning practice by unified the terms and agreed on its meaning.
Limitations
The current analysis had three limitations: the nature of included literature (input concern), the nature of changes in the future, and the nature of the analyzer. Firstly, the current analysis included studies that varied from textbooks, studies, and editorial articles. These manuscripts differ in their nature and the methods of describing the concept. Even with the authors’ efforts to systematically analyze these articles but lacking a standardized methodical evaluation for the grade of reference interrupted the quality of analysis. Secondly, the concept changes according to time. Therefore, the concept is sensitive to further changes in the future based on the advances in the technology or development in information technology. The analysis failed to predict these suspected changes and the nature of their influence. Finally, the analysis depends on the authors’ subjective understanding of the nature of the concept based on their background, which might differ if authors with different backgrounds reconduct the analysis.
Conclusion
Repositioning practice is a challenging concern in pressure ulcer domains. Even though the term looks straightforward, it needs further clarification. The analysis adopted archeology of knowledge with Rodger concept analysis to conclude that the term passes through three eras (classical, modern, and research). Each of these eras adds or removes for the repositioning practice until it is defined as turning for bedridden patients that contains harmonization, anchor, documentation, and a time-dependent intervention.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-son-10.1177_23779608221106443 - Supplemental material for Repositioning Practice of Bedridden Patients: An Evolutionary Concept Analysis
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-son-10.1177_23779608221106443 for Repositioning Practice of Bedridden Patients: An Evolutionary Concept Analysis by Abdulkareem S. Iblasi, Yupin Aungsuroch, Joko Gunawan, I. Gede Juanamasta and Cheryl Carver in SAGE Open Nursing
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
This concept analysis is a part of dissertation entitled “Scale development of nursing repositioning practice for bedridden patients, Saudi Arabia.”
Ethical Statement
We declare that an ethical statement is not applicable as this manuscript does not involve human or animal research.
Author Contribution
Abdulkareem S. Iblasi (ASI), Yupin Aungsuroch (YA), Joko Gunawan (JG), I. Gede Juanamasta (IGJ), and Cheryl Carver (CC) made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or the analysis and interpretation of data. ASI, YA, JG, IGJ, and CC involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content. ASI, YA, JG, IGJ, and CC gave final approval of the version to be published. Each author has participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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References
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