The Realities and Needs of Nursing Assistants Caring for Disabled Patients with Fecal Incontinence During Hospitalization: A Qualitative Study.

Objective: To explore the experience, role, and needs of medical nursing assistants during hospitalization in patients with incapacitated fecal incontinence.

Methods: Qualitative study using reflexive thematic analysis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 medical nursing assistants from three hospitals in Southern China.

Results: Four themes were constructed from the data: (1) Role perception. All participants described the multiple roles they played during care and knowledge and familiarity with the roles were seen as providing high-quality care to patients. (2) Career cognition. Overall, participants had a positive view of nurse assistants as a career. They believed that nursing experience was more important than training. (3) emotional belonging. The multiple roles of medical nursing assistants give them very mixed emotions. (4) Potential needs. Participants reported that the fatigue of repeatedly scrubbing and cleaning stools, the negative emotions that could not be faced and resolved, and their special status made them overwhelmed, potentially reflecting that they needed more support.

Conclusions: This study highlights the roles, experiences, confusions, and needs of nursing assistants in caring for patients with disabling fecal incontinence. Suggested areas for improvement include the development of more intelligent fecal incontinence collection devices and the development of management and training strategies by health managers based on the specific context of medical nursing assistants to emphasize the role of medical nursing assistants and improve the quality of clinical care.