Nursing Management of Incontinence Care in Acute and Long-Term Care Settings
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of urinary incontinence; the effect it has on older adults and the barriers nursing staff face when managing incontinence appropriately in acute and long term care settings. A literature search between 1995 and 2016 was conducted using medical health data-bases CINAHL and Medline, using a combination of key words such as: older adult, geriatric, nursing, urinary incontinence, continence, management, promotion, and interventions. Incontinence increases the risk of falls, skin damage, depression, urinary tract infections and development of functional dependency in older adults. Although there are similar barriers that nursing teams face when implementing continence care in long term and acute care settings, there are differences in assessment patterns, nursing culture, and in how nursing attitudes affects continence care. In both settings, nursing staff focus on containment methods rather than continence promotion techniques. In order to ensure best practice in continence care with older people, nursing staff require more education on continence care and support in integrating clinical practice guidelines. More research is needed to better understand nursing perceptions of urinary incontinence and the use of continence products with hospitalized older adults.
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