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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of illness-related worries as a mediator among depression, anxiety and self-care in heart failure (HF) patients was the aim of this study.

This study was descriptive and correlational study. In total, 149 patients with HF were selected for sampling in 2016. Patients completed self-care behavior scale, illness-related worries questionnaire and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) questionnaires. The Pearson correlation coefficient and Sobel test were also done.

According to the analysis of the Sobel test, the role of illness-related worries as a mediator in the relationship between depression and self-care result was −5.37. Sobel test analysis was done to assess the role of illness-related worries as mediator between anxiety and self-care (6.66). The correlation between depression and self-care was 0.488 (p<0.01); correlation between anxiety and self-care was 0.4 (p<0.01); correlation between anxiety and depression was 0.79 (p<0.01); and the correlation between illness-related worries and self-care was 0.71 (p<0.01).

Illness-related worries can serve as a mediator in the relationship among depression, anxiety and self-care. There was a significant correlation among the research variables. Therefore, educational programs to reduce depression, anxiety and increase self-care should be given priority to for HF patients.

The aim of this study was to describe nurses' and other health care professionals' views about their patient education skills and how to develop them.

The data for the study were collected from the participants of the online education course on patient education. The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

The results show that, in the experience of health care professionals, it is important to make a shift from the professional‐led education and counselling towards an education relationship in which the professional and the patient are equals and represent different kinds of expertise and to develop patient education towards patient‐centredness supporting the patients' self‐management.

The sample used in the research is small.

The participants in this study experienced that, as patient educators, it is necessary for them to acknowledge their own abilities, beliefs and values in order to be able to develop their patient education skills. This is noteworthy because appreciating and acknowledging the importance of reflection is one prerequisite for the paradigm shift from the traditional patient education model towards patient‐centred education. Consequently, it is important to investigate further the best ways of facilitating the development of health care professionals' skills with regard to patient‐centred education.

The study showed that, through education and training, health care professionals can recognize the need to develop their patient education towards patient‐centredness.

Health-oriented leadership is an emerging concept that is promising for better understanding how leaders can support employee well-being. However, there is uncertainty about the process through which health-oriented leadership relates to employee well-being. Advancing health-oriented leadership research, this study aims to examine employee self-care and the perceived team health climate as mediating mechanisms.

The authors conducted a time-lagged study with three measurement points (NT1 = 335, NT2 = 134, NT2 = 113) to test these mechanisms.

The results show that health-oriented leadership at Time 1 positively relates to employee self-care and perceived team health climate at Time 2, which, in turn, are negatively associated with employee exhaustion at Time 3.

The indirect associations suggest that health-oriented leadership relates to employee well-being via the perceived team health climate and the individuals' self-care. By revealing an important mediating mechanism, this study contributes to the health-oriented leadership literature and can help organizations and leaders improve health promotion in organizations.

Older care home residents who are assisted financially by their local authority have to have their placements reviewed at least annually. Such reviews provide an opportunity for the older person and their relatives to comment on the care that they receive.One of the themes that emerged from a recent study into the care home review system in one local authority was that older people who self‐fund do not have this opportunity and that this was inequitable. This paper discusses the possible benefits of extending the review system to include self‐funders, together with some of the issues that this might raise.

The purpose of this paper is to look at family carers’ views and experiences of self-funded care for older people with an emphasis on attitudes to public intervention.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with family carers in a densely populated city in Northern England. Study participants were recruited according to a purposive sampling strategy; data analysis was based on a qualitative content analysis approach.

The paper concludes that it may not be straightforward for local authorities to engage with family carers as appropriate under the Care Act 2014. An issue is that family carers do not envisage an intervention of the local authority in circumstances involving the use of privately paid social services.

Qualitative information gathered within a broad study of family carers’ views, attitudes and practices of care of dependent older people have been interpreted in the light of the provisions of the Care Act 2014 concerning self-funders. The qualitative approach and the limited number of study participants are issues with the generalisation of findings.

Only a handful of studies have attempted to look into family carers’ experiences of self-funded care and the paper aims to contribute to such limited literature. It also provides an evidence-based assessment of the challenges associated with the implementation of the Care Act 2014.

Previously, health self-care and informal or “close-care” for family and friends were receiving increasing attention, but became more important during the COVID-2019 pandemic. Sometimes, this was because formal services became less physically accessible to patients and were overburdened by patients ill with COVID-2019. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of this phenomenon and consider the implications for clinical governance.

A five-step search and narrative review method were used, and case examples were selected to illustrate some of these developments.

Examples discovered and described include innovations in websites, social media support groups, systems for matching volunteers to people needing of help, computer and mobile phone applications, digital devices and virtual health rooms run by peer volunteers to help others to learn and use digital technologies.

In response to their health self-care needs not being met, some patients and carers and their associations developed new digital technologies or adapted existing ones. This use and their innovation separate from health care have been largely unreported in the scientific and professional literature. This is the first review of grey literature and other reports of this growing phenomena.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the changing patterns of users’ behavior in the health care service system. Although patient engagement and health services’ co-production are understood as essential ingredients in the recipe for sustainable health systems, some determinants to patient involvement are still widely neglected by both policy makers and health care professionals. Among others, inadequate health literacy performs as a significant barrier to patient empowerment.

A survey aimed at objectively measuring health literacy-related skills was administered to a random sample of 600 Italian patients. The Italian version of the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) was used to assess the ability of the respondents to deal with written health information. Moreover, the respondents were asked to self-report their ability to navigate the health system. It was presumed that inadequate health literacy as measured by the NVS is related with impaired self-reported functional, interactive, and critical health-related competencies, paving the way for the inability and the unwillingness of patients to be involved in the health care provision.

About half of the sample showed inadequate health literacy. However, poor NVS scores were only slightly associated with limited self-reported functional, interactive, and critical health-related competencies. In general, patients with inadequate health-related skills were not likely to be engaged in the provision of health services. Elderly, people suffering from financial deprivation and less educated individuals were found to be at special risk of living with limited health literacy.

Limited health literacy is a common and relevant issue among people dealing with the health care service system. The impaired ability to collect, process, and use health information produces barriers to patient engagement and prevents the evolution of patients’ behavior toward health care co-production.

Health literacy is a widely overlooked issue in the Italian national health system. This paper contributes in shedding light on the determinants and effects of health literacy of Italian hospital patients. Besides, some insights on the validity of the methodological tools typically used to assess health-related skills are provided.

Contemporary technology has been implicated in the rise of perfectionism, a personality trait that is associated with depression, suicide and other ills. This paper aims to explore how technology can be developed to promote an alternative to perfectionism, which is a self-constructionist ethic.

This paper takes the form of a philosophical discussion. A conceptual framework is developed by connecting the literature on perfectionism and personal meaning with discussions in information ethics on the self, the ontic trust and technologies of the self. To illustrate these themes, the example of selfies and self-portraits is discussed.

The self today must be understood as both individualistic and relational, i.e. hybrid; the trouble is a balance. To realize balance, the self should be recognized as part of the ontic trust to which all information organisms and objects belong. Thus, technologically-mediated self-care takes on a deeper urgency. The selfie is one example of a technology for self-care that has gone astray (i.e. lost some of its care-conducive aspects), but this can be remedied if selfie-making technology incorporates relevant aspects of self-portraiture. This example provides a path for developing self-constructionist and meaningful technologies more generally.

Technology development should proceed with self-care and meaning in mind. The comparison of selfies and self-portraits, situated historically and theoretically, provides some guidance in this regard. Some specific avenues for development are presented.

The question of the self has not been much discussed in information ethics. This paper links the self to the ontic trust: the self can be fruitfully understood as an agent within the ontic trust to which we all belong.

In 2002 there were 19.8 million people in the United Kingdom over the age of 50 and it is estimated that by 2031 there will be close to 27 million (UK National Statistics Office, 2005). Predictions about the older population changes in the next twenty years indicate that although overall growth will be low, the numbers of ‘young old’ (65‐74) and ‘middle old’ (75‐84) remaining stable until 2011, the ‘old old’ (85+) will show a substantial increase (Grundy, 2004).Bowling et al (2002) stressed the importance of maintaining independence and control over one's life with ageing. This, together with having social roles and participating in social and voluntary activities/hobbies to include those performed alone, contributes to the foundation of good quality of life in old age. New European policies for older adults focus on the provision of equal opportunities, health promotion and stress their involvement in decision‐making (Fletcher, 2000). The increase in the ageing population is evident in the corresponding rise in the growth of nursing and residential homes, sheltered accommodation and home care support and it is anticipated that greater provision will be needed (Wittenberg et al, 1998), particularly if the aspirations of European policy are to be realised. However, some studies (eg, Sheppard, 2003) have documented the paucity of rehabilitation in residential and nursing homes and highlighted the disempowerment experienced by residents. The process of transition in the later stages of the life span from full independence in a familiar home environment to one of total care while providing security may engender feelings of helplessness with a decrease in psychological well‐being.This article outlines and discusses the findings of a study using narratives with older adults, undertaken to explore such effects of life changes, including transition, on their self‐concept.

An inquiry into the constitution of the experience of patienthood. It understands “becoming a patient” as a production of a subjectivity, in other words as a process of individuation and milieu that occurs through an ontology of production. This ontology of production can, of course, also be understood as a political ontology. Therefore, this is, first of all, an inquiry into a mode of production, and, secondly, an inquiry into its relation to the issue of social justice – because of effects of digital divisions. In these terms, it also reflects on how expert discourses, such as in medical sociology and science studies (STS), can (and do) articulate their problems.

An integrative mode of discourse analysis, strongly related to discursive institutionalism, called semantic agency theory: it considers those arrangements (institutions, informal organizations, networks, collectivities, etc.) and assemblages (intellectual equipment, vernacular epistemologies, etc.) that are constitutive of how the issue of “patient experience” can be articulated form its position within an ontology of production.

The aim not being the production of a finite result, what is needed is a shift in how “the construction of patient experience” is produced by expert discourses. While the inquiry is not primarily an empirical study and is also limited to “Western societies,” it emphasizes that there is a relation between political ontologies (including the issues of social justice) and the subjectivities that shape the experiences of people in contemporary health care systems, and, finally, that this relation is troubled by the effects of the digital divide(s).

A proposal “to interrogate and trouble” some innovative extensions and revisions – even though it will not be able to speculate about matters of degree – to contemporary theories of biomedicalization, patienthood, and managed care.