Australia. Participants (140 mostly elderly inpatients and 64 staff members) were recruited from four local public hospitals.
Data were collected using interviews, questionnaires, observations and grip strength testing. Several food and beverage packages were found difficult to open by at least 40% of patients.
These included milk and juices (52%), cereal (49%), condiments (46%), tetra packs (40%) and water bottles (40%).
The difficulties were attributed to ‘fiddly’ packaging, hand strength and vision; however, only tetra packs demonstrated a relationship between time taken to open and hand strength, suggesting other aspects of hand function may be more important than strength when opening food and beverage packages.