Patient preferences and discharge planning transitions.

Discharge planning is an urgently needed nursing intervention. The purpose of this article is to investigate the importance of patient and family preferences and participation for discharge planning and to describe the pilot testing of an instrument to measure patient preferences for discharge planning. The results identified a lack of congruence between patients' and caregivers' preferences, suggesting the need to assess both patients' and families' preferences early and incorporate this in discharge planning that begins at admission to a hospital. The instrument, Patient Participation Preferences Assessment (PPPA), is shown to be a useful, reliable, and valid instrument that can be used in conjunction with the companion instrument, Family Preferences Assessment (FPA), to assist nurses with comprehensive discharge planning for greater effectiveness.