Short summary

A qualitative explorative study on patients' oral care during admission. Participatory Design is the approach applied to design and develop a solution to meet the identified needs and challenges related to oral care. Furthermore, the solution will be tested and evaluated in a clinical setting.

Rationale

The presence of 700 different bacteria in the oral cavity causes need for daily oral care. Insufficient oral care will lead to increased morbidity in the oral cavity, malnutrition and long-term infectious diseases that require hospitalization and treatment. Oral care is an essential part of nursing however, nurses lack awareness, knowledge and skills to perform oral care.

The aim of this participatory design study is to improve oral care during admission by developing new ways to perform oral care in collaboration with both patients and healthcare professionals.

The study consists of three phases, each reflecting on the results from the previous phase:

Phase 1: Identification of needs Exploration of patients and healthcare professionals' lived experiences of oral care during admission from six different wards at a university hospital. Challenges and needs related to oral care are identified based on findings from participant observation and semi-structured individual interviews.

Phase 2: Design and development Through workshops, a solution is designed and developed in a co-design process between patients, healthcare professionals, IT designers and the research team. The solution is based on findings from the first phase to accommodate the identified needs.

Phase 3: Test and evaluation The new solution developed in phase two is tested in a clinical setting, and evaluation is conducted with patients and healthcare professionals.

Description of the cohort

The study includes patients and healthcare professionals from six different wards at Odense University Hospital with experiences of patients' oral care during admission.

Data and biological material

Qualitative data e.g. lived experiences of patients and healthcare professionals from participant observation, interviewes and focusgroups. Data from creative workshops.