A team from the School Nursing Department of the University of Navarra is working on the development, implementation and assessment of a program at Education that trains nurses to provide person-centered care at the end of life. For the preliminary phase, the team is funded by the high school of Health Carlos III of Madrid. The goal is to validate two scales that will allow current and future nursing and medical professionals to assess their person-centered care.

The project, led by Professor of Nursing Ana Carvajal, involves researchers from the Schools of Nursing and Medicine at the University of Navarra, the University of Navarra, the Navarra Hospital Complex, Primary Care and Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh). Clínica Universidad de NavarraThe two scales have an interprofessional approach and are based on a theoretical framework . Their validation will allow, in our Spanish context, to identify how professionals provide a person-centered internship , both in the hospital setting and in primary care and residential centers. This process will also be developed with nursing and medical students," says Ana Carvajal.

"Person-centered care, both for the patient and his or her family, is that which considers the patient as a whole, as a unique individual, not only attending to his or her disease. This way of looking at the person makes it easier for healthcare professionals to know and understand their life history, their health experience, the role of the family in the process, etc.," adds Professor Carvajal.

"Today," reflects the researcher, "society demands cutting-edge healthcare, but it also demands a profoundly human approach . The challenge consists, precisely, in bringing together both realities for the benefit not only of the patient and his or her family, but also of the healthcare professionals and the entire healthcare system. Caring in this way means, in addition to greater satisfaction for professionals, a reduction in healthcare expense at all levels of care".

Impact of research on Nursing

The results of this work will enable nursing and medical professionals and students to use two tools to accurately assess person-centered care, which is in high demand by society. "The fact that these scales are based on a solid theoretical model makes it easier, as researchers, to compare the level of person-centered care in different contexts and countries where the tool has been previously validated," says the expert.

Together with the author of the scale, Professor Brendan McCormack -nurse and psychologist, director associate of research center for the Person-Centered internship at Queen Margaret University (UK)-, the team researcher also includesAna Choperena, Begoña Errasti, Virginia La Rosa-Salas, Mónica Vázquez, Leire Arbea, Mª José Galán Espinilla, Marta Lizarbe and Vaibha Tyagi.