Influence of perceived benefits, barriers and activities of family engagement in care on family nursing practice: A cross-sectional correlational study

Aims: To describe nurses' perceptions of family nursing practice and to explore the influence of their perceptions of the benefits, barriers and activities of family engagement in care on family nursing practice. Design: A cross-sectional correlational study. Methods: In total, 460 nurses from two tertiary hospitals in the central region of Uganda participated. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected between August 2020 and January 2021 using the Family Nursing Practice Scale. Analyses included descriptive statistics, t-test, Pearson correlation, analysis of variance and ordinal logistics regression. Quantitative content analysis was carried out on the textual data. Results: Nurses who perceived that family engagement in care improves patient and family outcomes were more likely to rate family nursing practice highly. Perceived barriers to family engagement in care particularly time constraints, work overload and family-related conflicts have a negative and significant influence on family nursing practice. Nurse characteristics such as education, usual shift pattern and personal experience of having a family member in hospital are significantly associated with family nursing practice; nurses who work morning shifts were likely to report higher family nursing practice. Conclusion: The study reveals that several parameters (perceived barriers, perceived benefits and nurse characteristics) influence nursing practice with families. Thus, bearing in mind the diversity of healthcare contexts, the findings show that multiple interacting factors are important for advancing family nursing interventions and practice. Impact: Probabilistic factor-specific predictions of nursing practice with families are provided in this study - this addresses a gap in the evidence regarding the elements that should be optimized when designing well-informed policies and interventions to advance family nursing practice. A comparison of results in the literature with the present study's findings suggests a need to broaden the scope and context perspective in future research and broaden the understanding of how nurses' perceptions influence family engagement in care. Reporting method: The study adheres to the STROBE reporting guidelines. Patient or public contribution: Family members/caregivers were involved in the design of the study particularly in assessment of validation of the tools used in the study.