Critical Part Of The Health Care Community

Running head: BEDSIDE HANDOVER
Nursing Perception of Using Bedside Handover
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

BEDSIDE HANDOVER1
Introduction
Nursing professionals are critical part of the health care community, forming the
largest proportion of it. Providing health care services have primary objective of improving
patient’ s health outcome and safety and it is important the nurses, who have the largest
population amongst the health care professionals, take part in the decision making process of
care planning. One of the debatable topic in nursing care provision is the use and legality of
bedside handover in clinical practice. Sharing of clinical information between the nurse and
the patient at bedside is known as bedside handover. The information shared in such situation
may include current clinical condition and medical history of the patient, the patient’s
procedures or tests that have been scheduled, patient’s planning or expectation of discharge
from the clinic and patient’s need for assistance, such as toileting or showering (Malfait et al.
2018). Bedside handover has shown to ensure continuity in care by improving the
communication between the patients and nursing staffs, allowing the former to be an
important part of the discussion surrounding their care. This characteristic of care provision
has been an integral part of the nursing care for too long and it is important to get deeper
insights on the perception of the nurses in using bedside handover.
The following paper aims at finding out the nursing professional’s collective
perception of integrating bedside handover in their provision of care to the patient.
Background
As per Tobiano et al. (2017) it is important to carry out the handover in the bedside
for the proper visualization of the patient. In the paper the author has conducted a cross-
sectional survey in which each of the participant had an open-ended question that included
the barriers to the efficient bedside handover. The target or the sample population were the
nurses who used to work in acute medical wards. The total number of participants were 200
and 100 such surveys were completed. It is seen from the previous research that bedside

BEDSIDE HANDOVER2
handover also helps in the better participation of the patient along with enhancement of the
patient safety. However, according to the author there might be certain barriers in the
handover of the patient that can affect the rate of the patient safety and involvement. The
handover in the profession of nursing is the change of the shift of nurses and the handover of
the duties to the next nurse (Anderson et al. 2015). The most important part of handover is
communication among the nurses and should be done properly in order to facilitate smooth
relay of the patient information from one nurse to another. The author mentions a number of
barriers that have the potential to affect the handover of the patient information. The
identification of the barriers is necessary for the successful implementation of the
recommendations in the bedside handover. The barriers to the bedside handover might
include the complexities of the cultural differences, different evaluation processes and
different leadership goals (Malfait et al. 2019). The major barriers to the bedside handover
included censoring of the messages, problem in the flow of communication, and the
inhibiting features. Research has shown that there are a number of nurses who face difficulty
in sharing patient information aloud as they view the content as private and thus do not want
to share it loudly. This creates a major problem in the handover of the bedside information
among the nurses. The disruption in the flow of communication creates problems for a
majority of the nurses at the time of bedside handover (Malfait et al. 2018). This disruption
can be created by the external influences like the noise in the hospital that can disrupt the
flow of messages. There can be disruption in the flow of communication due to the questions
asked by the family members that are not related to the content of the handover (Tobiano et
al. 2017). This can distract the nurse at the time of bedside handover. Apart from this, there is
problem in the participation of the patient and the nurses might not get full support from them
due to their medical condition. Research has shown that due to the ineffective
communication, confidentiality problems, and hindrance in the patient and nurse participation

BEDSIDE HANDOVER3
creates disruption in the efficient bedside handover. This can be enhanced by the use of
certain frameworks for the effective handover in the bedside. The patient centered approach
and improving the effective communication of nurses will help in improving the bedside
handover.
Methodology
The study design to achieve the objectives of the research consists of systematic
review of literature relevant to the research topic. Databases including PubMed Central,
BioMed Central, and Cochrane Library were searched for articles relevant to the research
topic. Use of keywords including nursing perception, clinical handover, bedside handover,
therapeutic relationship, communication, nurse and patients were used to search for relevant
past conducted studies on the research topic. Boolean operators ‘AND’ & ‘OR’ were used in
the advanced search option in the databases, to refine the search results and ensure greater
relevancy of results with the research topic. The inclusion of only peer-reviewed articles
published between the years 2013 to 2019 was ensured. Only articles published in English
language were included in the study. The first review of search results included analysis of
the abstracts and the second round of review ensured reading of the complete content of the
study. Studies with high relevancy, no conflicts of interest and complete compliance to all
aspects of ethical considerations were approved for further analysis and reviewing.
Out of all the search results, 5 peer-reviewed journal articles were selected to be
included in the study. The use of CASP (Critical Appraisal Skills programme) checklist were
ensured to critically analyse the validity and reliability of the research findings from the
selected articles.
Review of Literature
As per Tobiano et al. (2017) it is important to carry out the handover in the bedside
for the proper visualization of the patient. In the paper the author has conducted a cross-