Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Many nurses in the Ghana Context could not advocate for vulnerable patients, including older adults, due to the complexity and limited understanding of processes involving patient advocacy activities and lack of patient involvement. Negative consequences of these barriers included increased complications and unnecessary death of some vulnerable persons. Meanwhile, older adults' experiences and advocacy expectations in Ghanaian acute care are unknown. The literature lacks a theory explaining patient advocacy from older adults' views in Ghana. The study's purpose is to explore the experiences and views of older adults regarding actions and processes involving PA in the acute care setting. The specific objectives are to: 1) explore older adults' experiences and views of actions and processes involving PA in an acute care setting, 2) investigate how older adults expect nurses to advocate for them in acute care, and 3) develop a theory about older adults' experiences and views of PA in the acute care setting. A qualitative study and grounded theory methodology will be utilized to achieve the study objectives (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). The study setting will be in Ghana, at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital (CCTH). Older adults aged 65 and above will be recruited for the study. Semi-structured interviews and audio recordings will be used for the data collection and transcribed verbatim. An interview guide with probing questions will be developed to facilitate the interview process. Data will be transferred from the digital recorder to a personal computer that is password protected and uploaded to the university of Saskatchewan servers. Following data analysis, findings will be written up for knowledge dissemination. Findings will also be published in peer-reviewed nursing journals and presented at international conferences. The Results will serve as a key reference for policy development and contribute to gerontological nursing in Ghana and beyond.