Aim: Nurse-led care aims to optimize the discharge preparation with a focus on increasing patients' independency and self-care abilities. This study compared patients' improvements of self-care abilities and frequency of readmission rate between nurse-led care and regular nursing care within the acute hospital setting.
Design: A quasi-experimental design within a real-world setting was used for this work.
Methods: We included a pool of 2501 patients from a control group (medically stable in usual care) and 420 patients from an intervention group (nurse-led care). After propensity score matching, the study cohort consisted of 612 patients.
Results: From admission to discharge, nurse-led care patients showed superior improvements of total self-care abilities compared to usual care patients. In particular, we found improvements in the following categories: mobility, grooming and excretion. Patients with nurse-led care were furthermore less frequently readmitted to hospital compared with the control group patients.
Patient or public contribution: No patient or public contribution.
Keywords: hospital setting; intervention; nurse-led care; readmission; self-care ability.
© 2023 The Authors. Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.