None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
This intervention trial is a pragmatic study to investigate the impact of three feeding assistance models on energy intake of older hospitalised patients (compared with pre-intervention data) and will provide some pilot data for other clinical outcomes, such as functional capacity, length of stay and mortality. This study will add to the limited evidence base on interventions to improve nutritional intake in elderly hospital patients. While this study will not be adequately powered to determine whether clinical outcomes are improved with these interventions, findings could be used to inform the design of larger trials to further evaluate outcomes such as functional status, hospital readmission and mortality. This study will also explore the impact of the different feeding assistance models on ward culture. As implementation of these interventions will require complex changes to service delivery, it is imperative that changes in staff behaviours and their perspective and acceptability of interventions are explored.
Interventions
3 feeding assistance models across 3 internal medicine wards. Each will run for a duration of 3 months (with 2 weeks lead in time prior to collecting data):
1. additional assistant-in-nursing (AIN) to assist with nutrition intake and care: 1 additional AIN per ward (existing 10 nurses per ward) with nutrition specific-role to feed patients, set up, fill in menus, liaise with dietitian and speech pathologist etc.
2. team-based nutrition care including protected meal times: education of multidisci
3 feeding assistance models across 3 internal medicine wards. Each will run for a duration of 3 months (with 2 weeks lead in time prior to collecting data): 1. additional assistant-in-nursing (AIN) to assist with nutrition intake and care: 1 additional AIN per ward (existing 10 nurses per ward) with nutrition specific-role to feed patients, set up, fill in menus, liaise with dietitian and speech pathologist etc. 2. team-based nutrition care including protected meal times: education of multidisciplinary team (allied health, nursing and medical) to encourage and assist nutritional intake and observe protected meal times (limit non-urgent interruptions to patients at mealtimes) 3. additional AIN introduced to ward with team-based model
Sponsors
Adrienne Young
Study design
Allocation
Non-randomised trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
65 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
65 years or older Admitted to Internal Medicine study wards Expected length of stay >3 days
Exclusion criteria
Palliative or terminal intent of admission Expected length of stay <3 days Transferred to another hospital ward/ treating team
Outcome results
None listed