South Australia Health Omnibus and caregiving of heart failure

The growing number of life-threatening heart disease accidents necessitates the South Australian Health Omnibus being prepared to deal with such emerging problems. According to the study, it is projected that 373 respondents (2.0 percent of the general population and 4.9 percent of caregivers) care for the elderly with heart disease (Davidson et al., 2013). However, numerous healthcare institutions record cases of heart disease per year. Chronic heart disease accounts for nearly one hundred thousand hospitalizations in the elderly per year. The South Australian Health Omnibus nurses have the responsibility to deal with heart failure incidents by organizing and being prepared to tackle the problem (Davidson et al., 2013). These efforts involve taking care of the patients with heart failures without regard to the financial burden that costs the society thousands of dollars in each year. The PICOT question that this paper intends to address is, “Are the elderly individuals who have present palliative care-takers at a decreased death risk of mortality as compared to the elderly people without care takers, over a period of five years?” For this study, the P represents heart failure patients. On the other hand, the letter I stand for the care given to the patient. Letter C compares patients receiving palliative care with those without the care services. Letter O denotes heart failure management, and T represents the five year period of heart failure. The purpose of this assignment is to reflect how nursing knowledge is disseminated for use in personal and professional practice.

Nursing research plays a major role in understanding nursing practices carried out in the healthcare sector. The knowledge acquired and skills practiced by the nurses are obtained from proper evidence-based research. The study approves the recommended ways to handle each of the identified problems. In light of this, the adherence to the laid professional practices and procedures enhance the protection of nurses and their patients, and also improves the quality of healthcare services advanced to clients (Grove, Gray, & Burns, 2015).

Validity is the description of how sound research is and the credibility of data and information gathered to perform the work. In this study, validity is achieved by using credible sources that address the concepts with relevance and with appropriate data. The study utilized relevant nursing and medical databases such as Cinahl, Cochrane Reviews, and Pub-Med to obtain the sources for the completion of this research. The search for the study materials entailed the use of keywords related to the underlying concepts. The researcher perused through abstracts of the various materials and sorted the articles by picking the most relevant ones. The search for the materials was limited to articles published within the last five years. The key concepts that were of great focus when doing the search were: ”The caregiving perspective in heart failure: a population based study“ and ”Understanding nursing research: Building an evidence-based practice“ (Grove, Gray, & Burns. 2015). Nurses should collaborate with related personnel in supporting evidence-based practices and ensuring they are practiced in their daily activities. As noted by Singleterry (2014), nurses utilize research findings and knowledge from evidence-based studies to make their professional decisions.

In the identified research paper, South Australian nurses (caretakers) were evaluated to determine their experience and attention which had been put into practice. The specific areas of interest included the left ventricular (LV) dysfunction, loading conditions, and neuroendocrine activation as pathophysiological mechanisms for progression of heart failure and factors that hinder the implementation of the practices. According to the article, more than 80% of serious care is given by qualified nurses other than close relatives of the diseased person (Davidson et al., 2013). Much of the data collected concerning the care givers were gathered in the hospital settings and the period of post discharge accessed immediately. According to the studies carried out in Austria, the average referral period from palliative care services given to the death of the patient is 102 days, which denotes 28.5% of the patient receiving palliative care for a period greater than half a year nationally (Davidson et al., 2013). This is contrary to the global patterns where the proportion of the individuals with the less harmful condition of heart failure accessing nurses’ palliative care services increases gradually. Caregiving practices allow South Australian Health Omnibus to apply them in cases where a patient with heart failure does not seek medical attention or if their relatives fail to take proper care in cases of heart failure emergency. This practice involves left ventricular correction, loading condition control and neuroendocrine measures. In such situations, the South Australian nurse’s proves that realization and administration of the correct measures to the patients can prevent immediate death and serious suffering to the elderly individuals who are affected as explained in (Davidson et al., 2013).

The reliability of the study is drawn from the consistency realized from the measurement methods used in (Davidson et al., 2013) article. The Davidson et al. (2013) article used surveys that targeted at the; orientation, skills, knowledge, and preparation of South Australian Health Omnibus on matters about heart failure. The survey was conducted by the author to discover the perception of the community on caregiving practices. Before the survey, a pilot study was performed to ensure consistency of the sample question in the questionnaires and to ease the answering of the questionnaires. Cronbach’s alpha is the recommended test of internal reliability. In light of this, α> 0.7 indicates strong internal consistency. On the same note, the surveys were conducted anonymously using stratified random sampling by selecting one person in each household. As such, the article was highly reliable regarding data collection and methods used in measurements as in (Davidson et al., 2013).

On the other hand, validity explores how the instrument used in the study overview the concept in the abstract and topic being investigated as stated in (Grove et al., 2015, p. 290). Descriptive statistics and cross-sectional (cross-tabulation) was used in the study of Davidson et al. (2013) article. The study analyzes the current practices in caregiving, points out the areas of concentration and identifies how the topic would benefit from further studies in comparison to the palliative care and life span of heart failure to an elderly patient. The preparation of the questions in the article incorporated a pilot survey to maintain information validity. The author reflected the validity of the study in both research design and measurement methods as shown in (Davidson et al., 2013).

From the article, the study has both strengths and weaknesses. The first point of weakness in the study is the interpretation of data used in the research, which should be taken with the proceeding of a descriptive cross-section and retrospective perception and the limitation of a designed questionnaire item, which should also be subjected to a detailed, comprehensive psychometry. More so, the report used is obtained from proxies to evaluate the patient comfort, service received and location of their death which is reproduced at the end of the diseased life. Also, symptom control during fatal phases of life threatening sickness like heart failure is time to time used in palliative care research due to challenges experienced in the research by involving people with life threatening illness as in (Davidson et al., 2013). On the other hand, the principal strong-point of the study is that it provides the building data to emphasize on the best practices to be incorporated to support individuals with heart failure. Besides, the sampling procedure followed by the South Australian Health Omnibus creates a wide and representative sample of the entire community instead of using caregivers to investigate perceived attitude towards care and comfort, application of independent surveys minimized the probability of biased positive indicators of service provision as explained in (Davidson et al., 2013).

The thematic area of the situation of caregivers in heart failure and their role in improving patient outcomes is explained by emphasizing the importance of caregivers understanding the symptoms of the individual with heart failure as early as possible (Stromberg, 2013). Most senior citizens may give general symptoms, some which may not reveal the problem they are suffering from. However, identifying the symptoms may not be helpful as such, but looking for the recommended care and treatment for heart failure victims may increase the life span of the affected individuals as a note in (Stromberg, 2013).

It is evident that heart failure cases are on the rise among the elderly people. It is important for South Australian health omnibus to be prepared to act on the emerging cases of heart failure with immediate effect. As noted earlier it cost hearth Omnibus thousands of dollars yearly to take care of the affected individuals. Therefore, despite its negative effect to the caregivers and the entire Centre, they should not fail to administer palliative care to the patient. This should be treated with a lot of humanity to help individuals who cannot afford the cost treatment and care given (Stamp, Dunbar & Clark, 2014). It is notable that availability of caregivers and palliative care to the patients with heart failure can decrease the risk of death as in (Stamp, Dunbar & Clark, 2014).

In conclusion, whether the elderly individuals who have present palliative care takers at decreased risk of death compared with the elderly individual without care takers over a period of five years heart failure emergency is a contentious matter. It is evident from the study that administering palliative care to the elderly individual with heart failure by nurses or caregivers decreases the risk of death to the individual receiving the care than those who do not receive it. This implies that South Australian Health Omnibus are recommended to train more caregivers to ensure every individual suffering from heart failure is receiving some nursing practices, as it would be helpful in prolonging their life as stated in (Davidson et al., 2013).

References

Davidson et al., (2013). The caregiving perspective in heart failure: a population based study. BMC Health Services Research 2013 13:342.

Grove, S.K., Gray, J.R., & Burns, N. (2015). Understanding nursing research: Building an evidence-based practice (6th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Saunders.

Stamp KD, Dunbar SB, Clark PC, et al. (2014). Family context influences psychological outcomes of depressive symptoms and emotional quality of life in patients with heart failure. J Cardiovasc Nurs; 29: 517–527.

Stromberg A, (2013). The situation of caregivers in heart failure and their role in improving patient outcomes. Curr Heart Fail Rep., 10(3):270–275.