ArticlePracticeCare partner: A concept analysis
Introduction
People living with acute and chronic conditions frequently require support and assistance with maintaining health and performing activities of daily living. The people providing assistance are frequently spouses, siblings, children, other relatives, or friends (Logsdon et al., 2010). The assistance provided ranges greatly reflecting varying degrees of independence (Sifton, 2004). This assistance results in a dyadic partnership of the person with the condition and the person, or persons, assisting them to achieve their short- and long-term health care goals.
Nonprofessional people providing assistance have been commonly referred to as carers, informal carers, or caregivers. Although these terms are often relevant and readily understandable, they do not reflect the true nature of the care dyad (Eilers, 2013). The care dyad is the care partnership between the person living with the condition and the people assisting them (Silverstein & Sherman, 2010). The term care partner has been increasingly used to reflect this care partnership concept.
Nursing care is provided to an individual when they do not have the capacity to provide their own care, which manifests a self-care deficit (Orem, 1980). Frequently, this care involves people significant to the nursing care recipient, most typically children, spouses, parents, siblings, or friends. The nurse's expertise in involving this group can significantly influence a care recipient's health outcome (Walker & Dewar, 2001). Furthermore, the nurse's understanding of the care recipient and their care partner relationship may enhance or conversely may be a barrier to improved health outcomes. In addition, the care partner may have health needs of their own that may need addressing that influence the care provided (Lyonette & Yardley, 2003). Therefore, the concept of the care partnership may have implications for nurses and nursing care.
The purpose of this concept analysis is to provide a starting point for agreement and disagreement over the use of the term care partner where a recipient of nursing care has a self-care deficit. Guided by Orem's self-care deficit theory (Orem, 1980), the concept of care partner can form a niche emanating from self-care deficit theory (Paley, 1996). It is within this theoretical approach that we have used the concept analysis method by Walker and Avant (1995) to guide this analysis of the concept of care partner.
Section snippets
Methods
A search of relevant health and medical databases was performed. The databases were EMBASE, MEDLINE, PubMed, and CINAHL. Databases from January 1990 to October 2015 were searched. The search terms “care partner” and “care partners” were used as key words and controlled vocabulary. A total of 948 publications were identified. Further analysis of every publication resulted in 845 exclusions because they were duplicate publications (514); they were conference abstracts only (109); the term care
Definition
The Oxford dictionary provides definitions for both individual terms “care” and “partner.” Care is defined as “the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something,” whereas partner is defined as “a person who takes part in an undertaking with another or others” (Oxford Dictionary, 2016). The combination of these two definitions results in a care partner being a person who undertakes, with another, the provision of health, welfare,
Discussion
This is the first report of a concept analysis to better understand the complex nature of the care partner concept within a self-care deficit theory. The analysis reflects the increased emphasis on the use of the care partner concept in health care and nursing in particular. Similar to caring in nursing, the care partner's role in health care is often an under-recognized hidden element of health care. Nurses have attempted to increase the recognition of care expertise by encouraging formal
Conclusions
Emphasizing the care partner dyad based on self-care deficit theory may have a positive effect on how nurses and health care teams may contribute to improved patient care outcomes both in the acute and chronic settings. It is recommended that nurses and other HCPs view the person with the condition as a contributor and partner in their own care in the context of a larger care partnership. Those care partners without the condition are recommended to be included as important members of the health
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the assistance of Evelyn Hutcheon, Western Health Librarian, who gave great assistance in the original literature searches.
Author contributions: All authors have agreed on the final version and meet at least one of the following criteria (recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors [http://www.icmje.org/ethical_1author.html]): substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
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