scholarly journals Patients’ Needs Regarding Anxiety Management in Palliative Cancer Care: A Qualitative Study in a Hospice Setting

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (11) ◽  
pp. 947-954 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Zweers ◽  
Alexander de Graeff ◽  
Jette Duijn ◽  
Everlien de Graaf ◽  
Petronella O. Witteveen ◽  
...  

Introduction: Anxiety is a common symptom in the palliative phase, and symptom management depends on the competencies of individual professionals. This study aims to get insight into the needs of anxious hospice patients with advanced cancer regarding support. Method: Semi-structured interviews were performed in admitted hospice patients with cancer. Patients admitted from May 2017 till May 2018 were eligible whether or not they were anxious. Interviews were analyzed and coded within predefined topics. Results: Fourteen patients were included: 10 females, median age 71, and median World Health Organization performance score 3. Most patients were highly educated. Thirteen patients were interviewed within 6 months before death. Information, open communication, sense of control, safety, adequate symptom management, and respect for patients’ coping strategy were the 6 main expressed needs. Conclusion: Assessing patients’ needs regarding anxiety provided important angles where health-care professionals can make a difference in order to support anxious patients in their final stage of life to realize tailored palliative care. Future research should focus on the development of a systematic approach for health-care professionals to manage anxiety in daily care of terminal patients.

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (15) ◽  
pp. 1098-1101
Author(s):  
Aditi Vinay Chandak ◽  
Surekha Dubey Godbole ◽  
Tanvi Rajesh Balwani ◽  
Tanuj Sunil Patil

Ecosystem, which consists of the physical environment and all the living organisms, on which we all depend, is declining rapidly because of its destruction caused by humans. It’s a two-way relationship between the humans and mother nature. If we destroy the natural environment around us, human life will be seriously affected, and the life of next generation will be endangered unless serious steps are taken. One such effect of human overexploitations has come in the form of coronavirus outbreak. Coronavirus, a contagious disease of 2019 known as Covid-19, is the latest swiftly spreading global infection. The aetiology of Covid-19 is different from SARS-CoV which has the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), but it has the same host receptor, human angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). The novel coronavirus which is zoonotic (spreading from an animal to a human) and mainly found in the bats and pangolins is a single stranded ribonucleic acid virus of Coronaviridae family. 1 The typical structure of 2019-nCoV possessed ‘spike protein’ in the membrane envelope, also expressed various polyproteins, nucleoproteins and membrane protein. The S protein binds to the receptor cell of host to facilitate the entry of virus in the host. Currently four genera for coronavirus are found α-CoV, ßCoV, γ-CoV, δ-CoV. SARS-CoV first originated in Wuhan, China and has spread across the globe. World Health Organization (WHO) and public health emergency of international concern declared it as 2019 - 2020 pandemic disease.2 According to WHO report, (7th April 2020) update on this pandemic coronavirus disease, there have been more than 13,65,004 confirmed cases and 76,507 deaths across the world and these figures are rapidly increasing. Therefore, actions for proper recognition, management and its prevention must be prompted for relevant alleviation of its outspread.3 Health care professionals are mainly indulged in the national crises and are working diligently around-the-clock, small ratio of the health care workers have become affected and few died tragically. Dentists are most often the first ones to be affected because they work with patients in close proximity. On 15th March 2020, the New York Times published an article titled “The workers who face the greatest Coronavirus risk” described the dentists are highly exposed, than the paramedical staffs and general physicians, to the risk of novel coronavirus disease 19.4


2020 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Fei Sun ◽  
Emmanuel Chima ◽  
Tracy Wharton ◽  
Vijeth Iyengar

Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) affect over 50 million persons globally, and the number is expected to rise. In response, health ministries are developing and implementing policies and programs to systemically address the needs of individuals and families affected by ADRD. While national plans of action on ADRD are advancing among European Member States of World Health Organization (WHO), those in the Asia-Pacific and Americas are lagging behind. Since previous studies have largely ignored the Americas and Asia-Pacific—where approximately two-thirds of the global ADRD population resides—this study sought to identify (a) the socioeconomic factors associated with the likelihood of having a national dementia policy, and (b) to examine common and differing features among the national plans in these regions. Employing the dementia policy guidelines of WHO and the Pan American Health Organization as an extraction guide for data collection and analysis, the national dementia plans and available socioeconomic data of 10 Member States were analyzed with comparative and qualitative analyses. Findings suggested at least a 14-fold increase in the likelihood of having a national dementia plan if a Member State had one of the following: a universal health care system, more than 14% of the population 65 years of age or older, or high-income. All the Member States in the study identified dementia as a public health priority, but priorities differed. Inconsistencies included development of information systems, training for health care professionals, and long-term care systems.


2020 ◽  
pp. 119-132

INTRODUCTION. The guidelines issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2009 regarding hand hygiene (HH) in health care provided health care professionals with scientific evidence that argued that HH principles should be respected when dealing with patients. Despite the passage of years and strenuous attempts to introduce these recommendations to the Polish health care facilities for the prevention of healthcare-associated infections (HAI), these principles are still not being implemented in an optimal way for the patient’s safety. OBJECTIVE OF WORK. The aim was to examine the views and attitudes of physicians (L) and nurses (P) towards the WHO rules of hand hygiene. MATERIAL AND METHODS. The study was performed by means of a diagnostic survey using a questionnaire of our own design; random sampling was used. The study involved 231 LP: 173 (74.9%) women, 58 (25.1%) men, including 93 (40.3%) doctors and 138 (59.7%) nurses. The study was conducted in a multiprofile hospital in Małopolska in 2017. The difference between what the respondents think (their views) and what they do in reality (what attitudes they display) was examined in relation to WHO principles, such as wearing natural short nails and jewelry on their hands. RESULTS. Negative practice of observing these HH principles in relation to views was detected (R = -0.014, p<0.05, R2 = 0.016). Respondents supported the view that the ring could affect HAI and rarely used it in practice, the practice was positive (R = 0.298, p <0.001, R2 = 0.085). Women strongly emphasized the view that wearing long nails has an impact on HAI spread, but in practice they often declared keeping long nails, practice was negative (R = -0.241, p <0.01, R2 = 0.054). In response to the question about the impact of nail painting on the spread of HAI, this view was poorly represented, in practice some of them wore painted nails, the practice was negative (R = -0.226, p <0.01, R2 = 0.045). CONCLUSION. Despite high support for the principles of hand hygiene, in practice, these principles were not always respected, the impact on the practice was negative in areas such as: general adherence to the HH principles, wearing long and painted nails. The compatibility of views with practice was detected in relation to wearing a wedding ring.


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 1001-1011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandrine Roussel ◽  
Mariane Frenay

Background. Two decades after “patient education” was defined by the World Health Organization, its integration in health care practices remains a challenge. Perceptions might shed light on these implementation difficulties. This systematic review aims to investigate links between perceptions and patient education practices among health care professionals, paying particular attention to the quality of practices in order to highlight any associated perception. Method. PubMed, PsycINFO, and Scopus were searched using the following search terms: “perceptions,” “patient education,” “health care professionals,” and “professional practices.” PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines were used. Results. Twenty studies were included. Overall findings supported the existence of links between some perceptions and practices. Links were either correlational or “causal” (generally in a single direction: perceptions affecting practices). Four types of perceptions (perceptions of the task including patient education, perceptions about the patient, perceptions of oneself as a health care professional, and perceptions of the context) were identified as being linked with educational practices. Links can although be mediated by other factors. Results concerning links should, however, be considered with caution as practices were mostly assessed by prevalence measurements, were self-reported and concerned exclusively individual education. When analyzing the quality of practices, the two retained studies highlighted their changing nature and the central role of perceptions with respect to the individual patient. Conclusions. This literature review led us to specify the quality criteria for further research: covering the entire spectrum of patient education, operationalizing variables, exploring specific practices, measuring the quality of practices, developing designs that facilitate causation findings, and considering a bidirectional perspective.


2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trisha Self ◽  
Kathy L. Coufal ◽  
Jennifer Francois

The global call to action has been communicated from the World Health Organization (WHO), addressed to health care providers and higher education programs. The expressed need is to mobilize a workforce that is “collaborative practice-ready” (WHO, 2010, p. 7), prepared to work as members of an interprofessional team. Although the context of the WHO statement explicitly targets health care professionals, it also addresses the need for services to be contextually based and culturally appropriate and to involve the families, communities, and individuals for whom services are directed. This article will explore the key elements and mechanisms of interprofessional collaborative practice in early childhood service delivery for health care and early intervention specialists from a number of professional perspectives.


Work ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 779-782
Author(s):  
Namdeo Prabhu ◽  
Rakhi Issrani

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infection a global pandemic due to the fast transmission of this disease worldwide. To prevent and slow the transmission of this contagious illness, the public health officials of many affected countries scrambled to introduce measures aimed at controlling its spread. As a result, unprecedented interventions/measures, including strict contact tracing, quarantine of entire towns/cities, closing of borders and travel restrictions, have been implemented by most of the affected countries including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this paper is to share health care professionals’ perspectives who are experiencing COVID19 firsthand in a foreign land. In addition, the role of the Saudi governance to combat the current situation is also discussed. DISCUSSION: Personal and previous experiences as related to Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) by the authors has been compared to the current situation and how it affected our thoughts and management. A review of the evidence-based literature was conducted to investigate the demographics of the region; and to understand the awareness of the various tools that are available and how they were utilized in the present situation of pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Saudi Arabia has been challenged during the pandemic as are other countries.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lejla Turulja ◽  
Merima Cinjarevic ◽  
Ljiljan Veselinovic

Purpose The present study aims to explore “what” type of knowledge is shared, “how” it is shared and what information and communication tools are used to share knowledge among health-care professionals in the context of emerging “digital laggard” country in the South-Eastern European region (i.e. Bosnia and Herzegovina [B&H]). Design/methodology/approach This study applies the qualitative research methodology and thematic analysis for collecting, analysing and interpreting data. Primary data is collected using semi-structured interviews (n = 9). Key informants are employees of the main primary health-care institution in the capital of B&H. Findings The results indicate that knowledge sharing among primary health-care practitioners is the interplay of formal and informal exchange of knowledge, facilitated by both traditional communication media (face-to-face interaction) and ICT-based tools. In regards to ICT tools, our findings suggest that instant messing applications (predominantly Viber) are viewed as common media for sharing tacit knowledge within a community of practice. Research limitations/implications This study is limited to one emerging digital laggard country; thus, future research regarding ICT-based knowledge sharing in other emerging digital laggard countries is welcomed. Originality/value In the context of “digital laggard”, societies, informal, spontaneous and dynamic system of social interactions can be a successful substitute for ICT-based formalised and structured system of knowledge sharing.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 121-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Kadetz

This paper examines the social construction of the World Health Organization’s normative discourse of the safety of ‘traditional medicines’. The findings presented are based on archival research, a review of the literature, discourse analysis of who documents, semi-structured interviews with pertinent stakeholders, and participant experience at the Western Pacific Region Office of the who. This discourse of safety can be traced to the rise and global dominance of scientific medicine over plural health care and the construction of biomedical expertise. This paper argues that biomedicine’s global hegemony and construction of a dominant discourse of safety was, at least in part, influenced by the American Medical Association, The Flexner Report, The Rockefeller Foundation, the League of Nations Health Organization, the World Health Organization, and the who’s adoption of traditional Chinese medicine as a template for health care integration. This network of stakeholders influenced the construction and dissemination of the global biomedical discourse of safety and the purported ‘safe’ control, regulation, and integration of non-biomedical practices and practitioners via biomedical expertise.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (S 01) ◽  
pp. S105-S109
Author(s):  
Bianca Princeton ◽  
Preetha Santhakumar ◽  
Lavanya Prathap

Abstract Objectives Coronavirus disease is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. This virus primarily spreads through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes. This virus was named after its shape, which takes the form of a crown with protrusions around it. The World Health Organization has recommended personal protective equipments (PPE) to doctors and health care workers attending COVID-19 patients. PPE generally includes masks, goggles, respirators, gloves, face shields, and isolation gowns. The principle aim of this study is to create awareness among dental students about the preventive measures taken by health care professionals while attending patients affected with COVID-19. Materials & Methods A questionnaire comprising 15 questions was created using an online Google forms website and was circulated among 100 dental students. The survey was conducted within a week in the months of April to May 2020. The results and observations were recorded in the form of pie charts. Results Ninety-three percent of the participants have stated that health care professionals must clean their hands often, cover their nose and mouth, and maintain safe distance from everyone in order to prevent the virus from affecting them. Sixty-three percent of the participants are familiar with the term PPE. Majority assume that health care professionals are given enough safety precautions while treating a patient with coronavirus. Conclusion Hence, to conclude, health care professionals play a vital role in improving access and quality health care for the population, and hence, they must be protected as well. Since dental students treat patients, they are vulnerable to infection as well, and must take proper safety measures.


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