Exploring perceptions of person-centered practice in Nursing and Physiotherapy social media communities: A Qualitative Study using Interpretative Phenomenology (IPA)

Abstract

Question: Exploring perceptions of person-centered practice in Nursing and Physiotherapy social media communities. Design: A qualitative approach analyzing data collected from a Twitter transcript using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Participants: A total of 504 tweets were collected and analyzed from 79 participants across the Nursing and Physiotherapy communities involved in the twitter transcript. Results: The twitter transcript revealed four key themes that contributed to person-centered practice; the relationship between patient and practitioner; the perception of power between patient and practitioner; treating the person and not their condition and the organizational demands placed upon staff to implement person-centered practice. These emerging themes show to impact the provision of person-centered practice between both nurses and physiotherapists, however nursing communities appear more developed into the person-centered practice framework and are more engaging, opposed to physiotherapists in current practice. The physiotherapists involved appear to engage in patient-centered practice but may not fully be aware of the differences between patient-centered and person-centered practice, although have similar approaches towards care. Collaboration between practitioner and patient throughout their healthcare journey appear vital to the success of creating a person-centered culture. Conclusion: Nurses involved in the transcript appear more developed and are more engaging in adopting positive attitudes towards a person-centered culture. Physiotherapists should aim to become more educated in the person-centered practice framework to enhance their practice, however further research is required to analyze a larger population of Nurses and AHP’s to further understand practitioner perceptions of person-centered practice.