Aftercare of chronic patients and frail elderly discharged from hospital

Evidence Summaries

Level of Evidence = C
Aftercare of chronic patients and frail edlderly after hospital discharge has probably no significant beneficial effect.

A systematic narrative review 1 including 17 studies on nursing interventions with a total of 5307 subjects was abstracted in DARE. Of these 12 were RCTs and 5 were controlled studies. The majority of studies did not report clear beneficial effects for the intervention group. Only 2 of the RCTs had positive outcomes. Studies with positive results showed lower methodological scores.

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by study limitations and inconsistency; heterogeneity in interventions and outcomes.

References

1. Bours GJ, Ketelaars CA, Frederiks CM, Abu-Saad HH, Wouters EF. The effects of aftercare on chronic patients and frail elderly patients when discharged from hospital: a systematic review. J Adv Nurs 1998 May;27(5):1076-86.  [PMID:9637337]

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