How Might We Help Nurses Gain More Empathy While Taking Care of Elderly Patients at Hospital?

Type of Work: Empathic Equality

Collaboration Partner: Kolding Hospital

WHAT?

A Struggle Day is a social game for nurses which aims to gain more empathy and experience elderly patients’ daily life in the hospital.

HOW?

By using a playful kit and creating more social activities for nurses to release some work pressure and understand more elder patients’ behaviors and emotions through the game.

WHY?

Older people treated in single rooms reported significantly higher loneliness as compared to Multi-Bedded Wards. An additional stressor, which may partly be related to the hospital staff, and partly to the person's illness and expected surgery is Loneliness.

Discover

“100% they are lonely. And sometimes when we visit them, they are always angry with us. Because they think we only care about their body. Give them medicine then leave. Patients want us to care about their feeling too.“ (Nursing student, Kolding Sygehus)

Drinking water
Elder patients drink water with tremors.
Sleeping
When elder patients sleep, they try to get rid of bandages many times.
Eating food
It’s hard for elder patients to eat food by themselves.

Define

Through interviews and observation, behavior of nurses more influences elder patients’ emotions.

Cultural Probe

It’s about probing things that are difficult to solve and overcome for nurses during their work. Different kinds of materials give nurses different meanings. One of the biggest problems for time is about time. Sometimes they don’t have time to take care of patients feeling, and it gives a lot of pressure.

Workshop with Nurses

Use positive and negative activities to make a social game and play it with nurse. It aims to understand the emotions and impacts of these activities on them.

Insights: