The carers of Hospital in the Home patients focus on clinical processes, procedures and the prediction of deterioration

The aim of this study was to explore the psychological processes and information needs in a group of 78 Hospital-in-the-Home (HITH) carers, randomly selected from two university teaching hospital HITH programs in Melbourne. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and explored with a computerised lexical thematic content analysis program. The results revealed that psychological themes of carers were mainly related to HITH clinical processes, procedures and the prediction of complications or deterioration of the patient. Carers indicated that they needed further information on the patients' clinical conditions, emergency procedures and how to detect deterioration. The implication for HITH nurses is that information provided to HITH carers should at least include these topics. The information needs of HITH carers appear to be different to those of the carers of individuals with chronic illness, consequently, nurses need to develop very specific patient and carer information materials for the HITH setting.