Introduction: psychological symptoms and delirium are common, but underreported in people with dementia on hospital wards. Unrecognised and untreated symptoms can manifest as distress. Identifying distress accurately therefore could act as a trigger for better investigation and treatment of the underlying causes. The challenges faced by healthcare professionals to recognise and report distress are poorly understood.
Methods: semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 25 healthcare professionals working with older people in general hospitals were conducted. Interviews were analysed generating themes that describe the facilitators and barriers of recognising and caring for distress in dementia.
Results: regardless of training or experience all participants had a similar understanding of distress, and identified it as a term that is easily understood and communicated. All participants believed they recognised distress innately. However, the majority also believed it was facilitated by experience, being familiar with their patients and listening to the concerns of the person's usual carers. Barriers to distress recognition included busy ward environments, and that some people may lack the skill to identify distress in hypoactive patients.
Conclusion: distress may be a simple and easily identified marker of unmet need in people with dementia in hospital. However, modifiable and unmodifiable barriers are suggested that reduce the chance of distress being identified or acted on. Improving our understanding of how distress is identified in this environment, and in turn developing systems that overcome these barriers, may improve the accuracy with which distress is identified on hospital wards.