Staff-Perceived Barriers to Patient Mobilization Vary by Hospital, Discipline, and Experience: A Multisite Cross-Sectional Survey

To describe staff-perceived barriers to progressive patient mobilization.

Cross-sectional staff survey.

Ten internal medicine wards in 4 hospitals in a large health service.

Nursing, medical, and allied health staff (n=208).

Not applicable.

Patient Mobilization Attitudes and Beliefs Survey. An overall barriers score and subscale scores for knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors were calculated and compared between hospitals, discipline, and years of clinical experience.

The survey was completed by 208 participants (123 nurses, 27 medical, 58 allied health), of whom 104 (50%) had <5 years of experience. The greatest perceived barriers included nursing workload, medical orders not being in place, and patient and family resistance to mobilization. Overall barrier scores differed between hospitals, discipline (mean nursing score ± SD 50±7; mean medical score ± SD, 51±7; mean allied health score ± SD, 43±7), and years of clinical experience (<5y mean score ± SD, 50±7; 5-9y mean score ± SD, 47±7; ≥10y mean score ± SD, 46±8); significant differences by hospital and discipline persisted in multivariate analysis. The behavior subscale had the highest barriers score and knowledge the lowest across all subgroups.

Staff-perceived nursing workload, lack of medical orders, and patient and family resistance to be the greatest barriers to patient mobilization. Barrier scores differed between disciplines, experience levels, and across hospitals within a single health service. Lower scores on the knowledge subscale highlight the need for multicomponent strategies beyond education that address culture and systems; education may particularly benefit medical staff.