Healthcare staff's views on the patients' prerequisites to be co-creator in preventing healthcare-associated infections

Background Every year, patients are affected by suffering and death caused by adverse events in connection with health care and the most common adverse events are healthcare-associated infections (HAI). The Swedish Patient Act from 2015 strengthens the patient's position in health care; however, there is lack of knowledge of how healthcare staff experience the possibilities to make the patient involved in the preventive work of HAI. Aim To describe healthcare professionals' views on the patient's prerequisites to be co-creator in preventing HAI in connection with hospital care. Method This study had a qualitative descriptive design with semi-structured individual interviews. Qualitative inductive content analysis was used to analyse the transcribed interview data. The study setting was a hospital in Sweden in 2015. Interviews were carried out among six healthcare professionals. Results In the analysis, 5 themes and 14 categories were identified in three different domains: Organisation, Healthcare staff and Patient. The result indicates an obstacle in each domain for the patient to become co-creator in preventing HAI. In Organisation domain, a lack of organizational structure such as elaborated working methods to involve the patient was pointed out. In the domain Healthcare staff, it showed that the professionals allocate the responsibility of preventing HAI to the patient but only if they had to or if they trusted the patient. In the Patient domain, the result states that the patient was perceived as passive; they did not take own initiatives to get involved. Conclusion The patient has an important role in successful HAI prevention work and should be considered as an obvious co-creator. Nevertheless, this study shows that neither organisation nor healthcare staff are sufficiently prepared for this. The organisation must make an anchored, structured and systematic work centred on the patient's needs and give more support both to healthcare professionals and patients.