Nursing Case Management of caregiver emotional heatlh at hospital setting and it´s influence on caregivers decission to take care at home
Francisco Pedro García-Fernández, María I. Carrascosa-García, María C. Rodríguez-Torres, Carmen Gila-Selas, Juan M. Laguna-Parras, Alfonso J. Cruz-Lendínez

SUMMARY

Aims: a) To determine the influence of the interventions of Nurse Case-Manager (NCM) at Hospital on “Caregiver Role Strain” and on the decision to take care of the patient at home. b) To quantify saving hospital stays and economic cost. Methodology: A retrospective observational study on caregivers with “Role Strain” managed by the NCM between April and September 2008. We analysed effectiveness of interventions by measuring the score at admission and at discharge on Nursing Outcome (NOC) “Caregiver emotio-nal health” . Saving hospital stays and economic cost have been calculated using the formula: Total number of patients with income / early Hospital discharge x Average daily cost.

Results: 64 patients had the diagnosis. In all cases, NOC “Caregiver emotional health” was activated. Interventions were effective in improving the NOC from 2.41 on admission to 3.81 at discharge (p <0.0001). 31 of these patients, who were planned to be transfered to a medium-stay hospital, have been discharged home after intervention by the NCM. There are differences in the scores at Discharge from the NOC (> or <4) in this group compared with the group that continues normal course (p> 0006). The interventions of the 2 NCM have saved a total of 798 days of stay valued at €360,270 in 6 months.

Conclusions: The interventions of the NCM improve the emotional health of caregivers, and succeed in improving the readiness of the caregiver to take care of the patient at home, which has direct impact on the average length of stay and associated cost.

KEY WORDS

   Cost, effectiveness, nursing intervention, hospital nursing case-management, caregiver role strain, emotional health of the caregiver.

Vol. 23 nº1-2012