[Nursing needs of the elderly in hospital from the nurses' viewpoint]

The human needs of elderly people in hospital were studied from the point of view of the nursing staff in order to describe how important nurses perceive the satisfaction of these needs to be, what kinds of needs they regard as significant or insignificant and what opportunities they have to influence their satisfaction. The data were collected using questionnaires, filled in by 130 nurses working in 14 geriatric wards in the hospital attached to a Health Centre. Human needs were evaluated on a scale based on the theory of human needs created by Yura and Walsh. The data were analysed by quantitative statistical methods: frequency and percentage distributions, cross tabulations and the Chi-Square test. The nurses regarded the satisfaction of human needs among the elderly as extremely or very important in most of the answers (70%) and as important in 27%. In only 3% did the nurses describe this aspect as being of little importance or insignificant. The satisfaction of many psychosociological and physiological needs was also regarded as extremely or very important. Nearly half of the nurses (49%) described the satisfaction of sexuality needs as important, a quarter (25%) as extremely or very important, and the remaining quarter (25%) regarded these needs as of little importance or insignificant.