Patient Room Handedness in Acute

¶ … Patient Room Handedness in Acute Medical-Surgical Settings

Author(s) Name: Pati, D., Cason, C., Harvey, T.E., & Evans, J.

Researchers investigated whether same-handed rooms contributed more to patient safety and efficacy than mirror-handed rooms.

Many hospitals employ a same-handed room outlay thinking that they enhance patient's safety and ease. However, no empirical investigated has been performed to assess whether theis is indeed the case

Empirical investigation has also not been performed to corroborate the fact that same-handed rooms are safer for patients, as well as more efficacious, than mirror-handed rooms.

Research needs to be performed since specialized construction of same-handed rooms is costly.

Design Criteria

Authors concluded:

That there is no difference between same handed room and mirror-handed room in outcomes of patient comfort and safety

That the most important factor for patient comfort and safety was acquaintance of patient upon entry to all aspects of his new environment. This would make him familiar with place and reduce his anxiety and discomfort with strangeness.

InformeDesign Identified:

Hospitals and medical institutions would be able to save vast amounts of money with application of this research.

Key Concepts

Researchers investigated whether same-handed rooms contributed more to patient safety and efficacy than mirror-handed rooms.

Many hospitals employ a same-handed room outlay thinking that they enhance patient's safety and ease. However, no empirical investigation has been performed to assess whether same-handed rooms are indeed more comfortable and safe than mirror-handed rooms are for patients.

Such research particularly needs to be performed since cost of construction of same-handed rooms is costly given its specialized design.

Research Method

An experimental setting was developed in the college of nursing in a large university where elements of the physical environment and approach to the caregiver zone were systematically changed in accordance with nine different design configurations

Twenty registered nurses (10 left-handed and 10 right-handed) provided three types of care to a patient-actor in these nine different design configurations (ranging across handedness and different physical approaches to patient)

All instances were videotaped in 540 separate segments.

Structured interviews of the subjects were conducted at the end of each individual set of simulation runs to obtain triangulation data.

Video segments were coded by nursing experts.

Statistical and content analyses of the data were conducted.

Limitations

All nurses were female. Males may have provided different response. The sample may have been too small; only 10 individuals of each handedness were involved. The sample was extracted from only one environment, the participants were familiar with environment. Replication of various other environments may have provided different response. The repeated measures design may have influenced response second time around.

Commentary

I found details of structured interview to be too vague. The best accounts of experimental studies are those that reader can replicate. Many of the steps of this study were sufficiently elaborate for repllication, but I found details of interview questions vague and incompletely elaborated upon so that one left with an ambiguous impression of many of the questions.