35 - RCN

31. Methodological issues in developing and evaluating information provision strategies: A case for case study (208)

Paula Beech, Health Services Researcher, R&D Department, Hope Hospital, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, Salford, United Kingdom
Co authors: Ann-Louise Caress & Ian Davidson
paula.beech@manchester.ac.uk

Abstract:

Patients and families require accurate and timely information to manage health conditions. Inadequacies and dissatisfaction with information provision persist. This paper will address, using stroke as an exemplar, limitations of current strategies used to explore methods of providing information, and promotes ‘Case Study’ (Stake 1995, Yin 2003) as an alternative for studying this complex topic in practice. Interviews/surveys elicit information that stroke survivors and their families may require and that professionals think they should provide, and how they may be delivered. This offers useful insight into the content and potential modes of information delivery but risks bias as they rely on self report of retrospective experience. They offer no contextual translation of results into practice and when undertaken with one group limit active comparison between groups. Studies based on self report do not capture the process of how information is delivered. For this observation studies are required. Observational study in stroke has demonstrated how little communication time is actually devoted to providing health information with patients. However, observation alone provides limited opportunity to examine the context for this and potential solutions. Studies have tested information interventions through randomised controlled trials but with mixed results. In a Cochrane review of information provision in stroke it was concluded that greater clarity was needed about the aims and expectations different stakeholders had of information provision in order to inform robust design of interventions (Forster et al 2001). To improve our understanding of the deficits in information provision there is a need to investigate the phenomenon within the context of practice and from a number of perspectives simultaneously. This paper argues that case study offers a flexible and versatile strategy to do this (Yin 2003), and uses an on-going study to illustrate this.

Biography:

I have worked in the NHS for 15 years after completing my training as a nurse in 1992. My clinical background is predominantly neuroscience nursing. I have been working in research for the last seven years and am currently employed as a health service researcher with a brief for carrying out research and supporting capacity and capability of others to do so. I am registered for a PhD and am in the second year of my studies.