Effective nursing leadership as a catalyst for person-centered care and positive nursing-patient interactions: evidence from a public Ghanaian hospital
Date
2024
Authors
Kwame, PhD, Abukari
Petrucka, Pammla
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Discover Health Systems
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Article
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Abstract
Person-centered care (PCC) is crucial to patient engagement in healthcare enhancing patients’ participation in criti- cal care decision-making, increasing care disclosure, reducing medication errors, and promoting satisfaction with care outcomes. Healthcare management and leadership practices contribute to effective communication and interactions between healthcare providers and patients, which is vital for quality PCC outcomes and patient perceptions of care pro- viders. However, little is known about how nursing leadership influences PCC and clinical interactions in the Ghanaian setting, which this study saw as a gap and aims to fill. This paper reports data from interdisciplinary exploratory qualita- tive research to examine the impacts of nursing leadership practices on nurse-patient relationships and care outcomes. Nurses (11), patients (22), and caregivers (11) participated in the study. Data were gathered in Ghana through interviews, focus groups, and participant observations and analyzed thematically. The three themes which emerged were: hospital leadership and the nursing staff, healthcare management practices, and communication barriers regarding how nursing leadership impacts PCC. Poor relationships between nurses and hospital leaders affected nurses’ caring practices. Man- agement practices, including an annual rotation of nurses across different patient wards and exigent patient record management routines, negatively impacted care delivery and patient-provider interactions. These leadership practices and the strained relationships between nurses and hospital leaders potentially derail effective PCC. Nursing and hospital managers must embrace transformational leadership and healthcare management practices, especially in resource-scare settings, that foster a trusting care culture and/or environment for therapeutic nurse-patient relationships to thrive and for PCC to be actualized.
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Keywords
Healthcare administration, Health communication, Healthcare delivery, Nursing leadership, Nurse-patient interactio, Person-centred care, Ghana, Sub-Saharan Africa
Citation
Kwame, A., Petrucka, P.M. Effective nursing leadership as a catalyst for person-centered care and positive nursing-patient interactions: evidence from a public Ghanaian hospital. Discover Health Systems 3, 50 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44250-024-00095-5
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DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s44250-024-00095-5