IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jocnur/v22y2013i15-16p2318-2326.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perspectives of health personnel on how to preserve and promote the patients’ dignity in a rehabilitation context

Author

Listed:
  • Synnøve Caspari
  • Trygve Aasgaard
  • Vibeke Lohne
  • Åshild Slettebø
  • Dagfinn Nåden

Abstract

Aims and objectives To explore how healthcare personnel comprehend the term dignity and what they do to attend to, preserve and promote the dignity of patients in the rehabilitation context. Background Literature reveals that knowledge exists concerning the nature of dignity. Literature is scant on how health personnel think the reasons may be when patients do not maintain their dignity or how caregivers might improve and strengthen their concern in preserving and promoting the patients' dignity in a rehabilitation context. Design The study was explorative and descriptive, with content analysis of gathered empirical data. Methods Qualitative focus group interviews with representatives from the staff at three different rehabilitation centres were carried out. Professionals within different occupations were represented at the meeting: nurses, ergonomists, physiotherapists, psychologists, medical doctors, social workers, auxiliary nurses and speech therapists. Results Dignity is promoted when the patient himself becomes an active agent, when the patient's feelings and thoughts are respected, when the family of the patient is included and listened to, when the patient is free to make critical comment, when members of staff are able to cope with the patient's disabilities and when the aesthetic environment is attended to and enhanced. Dignity is not promoted when health personnel override or dominate patients, when health personnel focus merely on the patient's diagnosis and not the sick person and when health personnel and/or relatives try to impose their own values. Conclusion The staff working in institutions to rehabilitate patients with head injuries and multiple sclerosis must be aware and sensitive to the importance of maintaining and supporting the patient's dignity and self‐respect. Relevance for clinical practice The results from this project confirm the importance of acknowledging the patient's self‐worth as a human being, unconditionally. This might be essential in promoting and preserving the patients' dignity.

Suggested Citation

  • Synnøve Caspari & Trygve Aasgaard & Vibeke Lohne & Åshild Slettebø & Dagfinn Nåden, 2013. "Perspectives of health personnel on how to preserve and promote the patients’ dignity in a rehabilitation context," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(15-16), pages 2318-2326, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:22:y:2013:i:15-16:p:2318-2326
    DOI: 10.1111/jocn.12181
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.12181
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jocn.12181?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bjørg Christiansen & Marte Feiring, 2017. "Challenges in the nurse's role in rehabilitation contexts," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(19-20), pages 3239-3247, October.
    2. Nurfika Asmaningrum & Dini Kurniawati & Yun‐Fang Tsai, 2020. "Threats to patient dignity in clinical care settings: A qualitative comparison of Indonesian nurses and patients," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(5-6), pages 899-908, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:22:y:2013:i:15-16:p:2318-2326. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2702 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.