Quotes related to the transition phase of outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT)
| Picker principle | Representative quotes | Patient characteristics (gender, age, weeks of OPAT) |
| Respect | The only thing I had great difficulty with was that actually—yes, nothing against their home care organisation—but that they were forced on me somewhat. At a certain point I said, ‘I have my own home care organisation.’ ‘No, we have contracts with a specific one.’ I thought that in fact the patient still decides who does or does not come to his home. | Male, 80 years, 8 weeks |
| Information | But if someone comes to me now ‘I have to go home tomorrow and I’m getting a PICC’, then I would just tell him what a day looked like for me. That’s different for everyone personally. | Male, 52 years, 1 week |
| Coordination | What also is a very big point, in my opinion, in terms of communication here, is that the first time I was to go home, it didn’t happen. It appears that they had said in the department, ‘You can go home with this antibiotic.’ They had not taken this into account in the department: 3 days go by after they send off the application before they process it here and have the medicines ready. Three days in between, and they had forgotten that. Forgotten, well, they did not know that. | Male, 52 years, 1 week |
| Continuity and transition | They said that I could go home Tuesday, and then it was Friday because the antibiotic was not ready and so on, uhm. | Female, 71 years, 6 weeks |
| Continuity and transition | It went pretty smoothly for me. They said to me on Thursday, ‘We’ll place a PICC for you.’ That was done on Friday, and then they came to tell me, ‘Tomorrow the Home Care will be there.’ That was all very well arranged. | Male, 57 years, 12 weeks |
| Physical comfort | Medication was administered continuously through the PICC for 6 weeks in the hospital, and now it’s once a day, so this is just great for me. I’m also enjoying life. I am very happy. | Female, 65 years, 12 weeks |