Determining the Care Needs of Elderly Individuals Who Live in a Nursing Home According to the Functional Health Patterns Model

Objectives: This study was conducted to determine the care needs of elderly individuals who live in a nursing home according to the Functional Health Patterns Model. Methods: This study was conducted in the Canakkale Cakader Danis Nursing Home with 66 elderly patients. Data were collected with an Introductory Information Form, a NANDA- Taxonomy II-Nursing Diagnosis List grouped under Functional Health Patterns, and a Standardized Short Mental Test. In the assessment of the data, number-percent distributions were used. Results: The mean age of the elderly was 76.35 years (SD=9.94). 56.1% of the elderly people were female, 93.9% of them were widows. The highest education level was primary school for 48.5% of them. 80.3% of the elderly live in the nursing home willingly, 59.1% of them have visitors, and 31.8% of them can go for visiting. 74.2% of the elderly have health insurance. The mean score of the Standardized Short Mental Test was 23.38 (SD=5.47). According to the nursing diagnosis, the most common problems in the elderly were sleep pattern disturbance (60.6%), impairment in social interaction (60.6%), fatigue (54.5%), loneliness (53%), pain (50%), self-care deficiency syndrome (50%), anxiety (40.9%), ineffective individual coping (36.4%), activity intolerance / the risk of activity intolerance (33.3%), risk of injury (33.3%), and memory impairment (30.3%). Conclusion: According to the Functional Health Pattern Model, the most common problem areas in the elderly were Activity-Rest, Coping-Stress tolerance, Cognitive-Perceptual, Security-Protection, and Self-perception. The Model of Functional Health Patterns can be used as an easy and convenient model for determining health care requirements and implementing nursing interventions for elderly people in nursing homes.