Abstract
Aim: To investigate how patients admitted to single-room accommodation experience mealtime
situations.
Methods: The study employed an ethnographical phenomenological design using the go-along method.
From April to September 2022, 40 hours of meal-related observations and informal conversations
with ten patients were completed in a Danish cardiac medicine ward and a vascular surgery ward.
Data were analysed using a Ricoeur-inspired method.
Results: Admission to a single-room is not unequivocally excellent or wrong with respect to the
patients’ experiences of the meal or their perceived appetite. Nevertheless, meals were often
referred to as the highlights of the day. Patients were positive about their own influence on
their food choices, but they needed to experience professionals talking to them about healthy
nutrition. Privacy was greatly emphasised, and most patients chose to eat alone because of their
condition. Therefore, eating in the common dining room was seldom chosen. The results are
presented in two themes: 1) Beyond the tray: Understanding the significance of meals for
patients in single-rooms, and 2) Alone – but not lonely.
Conclusions: Single-rooms allow for privacy during illness and recovery and make it possible to
have private conversations about adequate nutrition. Clear professional responsibility needs to
be assigned for the meal in single-room accommodation.
Relevance to clinical practice: Knowledge of patients’ perspectives may guide nurses’ approaches
to communicating with patients about the importance of the meal.