Challenges in the nurse's role in rehabilitation contexts

To shed light on how nurses perceive particular challenges that they experience in encounters with patients in rehabilitation wards.

Rehabilitation is a tailor-made process that allows someone with impairment to live well. Many rehabilitation institutions embrace strong beliefs in patient participation as well as awareness of and listening to the needs and wishes of patients. To our knowledge, few studies have investigated the challenges encountered by nurses from patients in rehabilitation contexts and how these challenges might influence their roles as nurses.

This study has a qualitative design that is based on three focus group interviews with nurses working in three rehabilitation wards. A convenience sample of 15 nurses, five from each ward, was recruited to participate in focus group interviews. The participants worked in wards for patients suffering mainly from stroke and head injuries. The analysis is inspired by hermeneutic principles to explore the participants' challenges in their role in rehabilitation contexts.

Data analyses identified three main themes surrounding the challenges experienced by nurses: (1) Adjusting patients' and next of kin's expectations, (2) Tailoring support and information, (3) Recognising patients' knowledge.

Our results from the three rehabilitation wards indicate that nurses display various educative strategies. There is, however, a need for further empirical work into how knowledgeable patients and next of kin create new challenges with implications for the nurse's role within rehabilitation contexts.

The study highlights the educative aspects of the nurse's role in relation to patients and next of kin on rehabilitation wards as significant contributors to recovery processes.