Building patient capacity to participate in care during hospitalisation: a scoping review

What is it about?

Patients have important opportunities to contribute to the safety and quality of the care they receive in hospital. Past studies have found engaging patient in care provided can result in many positive outcomes for both patients and health care systems. Our team, which included a patient representative, undertook a review of the published literature that focused on how to promote patient participation in care. This scoping review examined 87 different studies that examined how to promote participation in care while hospitalized. The main areas in which hospitalized patients were encouraged to participate included: patient safety; care coordination; effective treatment; bedside nursing hand-overs; communication; care planning; and the care environment. While there were many types of studies included, the majority found one or more positive outcomes from the efforts to promote patient participation in care. Many of these studies involved different ways to change the behavior of patients, families and/or healthcare providers. The most frequent types of behavior change involved: adding new objects to the environment; and restructuring the social or physical environment in which care was provided. Moving to a patient-centred model of care that truly promotes patient participation in care involves behavior change on the part of patients, families, providers and the health care system as a whole. More studies are needed to better understand how we can move towards this new model of patient-centred care.

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