Response to Hayden and Glenn (2011)

We thank the authors Hayden and Glenn for commenting on our paper ‘The introduction of a nursing guideline on depression at psychogeriatric nursing home wards: Effects on Certified Nurse Assistants’, which was published in the International Journal of Nursing Studies (Verkaik et al., 2011). In our paper we conclude that the introduction of the nursing guideline ‘Depression in dementia’ had a positive, though small, significant effect on the perceived professional autonomy of Certified Nurse Assistants. We found that effects could probably be enlarged if non-Certified Nurse Assistants and nursing helpers were also trained, and managers paid more attention to the necessary conditions for successful introduction.