The purpose of this study was to determine the opinions and expectations of patients and nurses about privacy during a hospital admission for surgery. The study explored what enables and maintains privacy from the perspective of Turkish surgical patients and nurses. The study included 102 adult patients having surgery and 47 nurses caring for them. Data were collected via semistructured questionnaire by face-to-face interviews. The results showed that patients were mostly satisfied by the respect shown to their privacy by the (...) nurses but were less confident of the confidentiality of their personal data. It was found that patients have expectations regarding nursing approaches and attitudes about acknowledging and respecting patient autonomy and confidentiality. It is remarkable that while nurses focused on the physical dimension of privacy, patients focused on informational and psychosocial dimensions of privacy, as well as its physical dimension. (shrink)

Privacy is a key ethical principle in occupational health services. Its importance is emphasised in several laws, in ethical codes of conduct as well as in the literature, yet there is only very limited empirical research on privacy in the occupational health context. Conceptual questions on privacy in the occupational health context are discussed. The baseline assumption is that, in this context, privacy cannot be approached and examined only from the employee’s vantage point but the employer’s point of view must (...) also be taken into account, and that the concept has several dimensions . Even though privacy is a basic human need, there is no universally accepted definition of the concept and no consensus on whether an organisation can have privacy in the same way as people do. Many of the challenges surrounding privacy in the context of occupational health seem to be associated with the dual loyalties of occupational health professionals towards the employee and employer and with their simultaneous duties of disseminating and protecting information . Privacy is thus not an absolute value, but more research is needed to understand its multidimensional nature in the context of occupational health. (shrink)

The UK Government published various circulars to indicate the importance of respecting the privacy and dignity of NHS patients following the implementation of the Human Rights Act, 1998. This research used an ethnographic method to determine the extent to which health professionals had in fact upheld the philosophy of these documents. Fieldwork using nonparticipant observation, and unstructured and semistructured interviews with patients and staff, took place over six months in three acute care wards in a large district NHS trust hospital. (...) Applying the principles of phenomenology and grounded theory, the data were analysed and the contents organized into 11 key categories, leading to the formulation of a privacy model. The level of intrusion into patients’ privacy by health professionals was measured against the benchmarking of the ‘dignity and privacy’ factors contained in the Department of Health’s The essence of care document and Article 8 of the Human Rights Act. The findings established that patients had little privacy in the wards, and that the terms ‘privacy of the person’ and ‘dignity’ are interrelated. (shrink)

Emergency care providers regularly deal with ethical dilemmas that must be addressed. In comparison with in-hospital nurses, emergency medical service personnel are faced with more problems such as distance to resources including personnel, medico-technical aids, and information; the unpredictable atmosphere at the scene; arriving at the crime scene and providing emergency care for accident victims and patients at home. As a result of stressfulness, unpredictability, and often the life threatening nature of tasks that ambulance professionals have to deal with every (...) day, ethical decision-making has become an inevitable challenge. The content analysis approach was used to conduct the present qualitative study in Iran. The participants consisted of 14 EMS personnel selected through purposive sampling, which continued until the data became saturated. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed concurrently with their collection through the constant comparison method. The process of data analysis resulted in the emergence of 3 main categories “respecting client’s values”, “performing tasks within the professional manner”, “personal characteristic”, and the emergence of eight sub-categories signifying participants’ experiences with regard to EDM. According to the results, when EMS personnel are faced with ethical dilemmas, they consider the client’s values and professional dignity, and perform the assigned tasks within the framework of the regulation. The findings also suggest that pre-hospital care providers assess legal consequences before making any decision. Further studies should be conducted regarding the experiences of the subordinates and other related parties. (shrink)

The research reported in this article examined the influence of nurses’ attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control on maintaining patients’ privacy during hospitalization. The data were gathered from 109 nurses in six internal medicine wards at an Israeli hospital. The research was based on the theories of reasoned action and planned behavior. A positive and significant correlation was shown between nurses’ attitude to promoting and maintaining patient privacy and their planned behavior, while perceived behavioral control was the best variable (...) for predicting the nurses’ behavior. Better educated nurses believed that they had fewer resources and anticipated more obstacles in acting to promote and maintain patient privacy. This research adds a new dimension to what is already known about nurses’ attitudes to maintaining patients’ privacy, nurses’ planned behavior and their actual behavior. The practical implications of the findings are the identification of factors that influence the attitudes and behavior of nursing staff, which, in turn, will enable allocation of resources for solving difficulties and removing obstacles. The results will allow the formulation of educational programs to guide staff and also the application of policies based on both patient and nursing staff needs. (shrink)

Respect for human dignity is a basic and crucial component of nursing care. Illness with restricted physical ability and being confined to bed can compromise the dignity of patients. The views of adolescents regarding dignity in care have not previously been researched. This article details a descriptive-analytic study in which survey data was collected from all nurses and compared with a convenience sample of 180 hospitalized adolescents in two hospitals in Iran. The data was analyzed with SPSS software. A significant (...) difference between nurses and hospitalized ill adolescents’ perceptions was identified in relation to: understanding the importance of privacy (p < 0.001); observance of privacy (p < 0.001); importance of interaction between nurses and patients (p = 0.019); and the observance of interaction between nurses and patients (p < 0.001). Attention to adolescents’ views about dignity can help nurses to improve quality of care for this group. (shrink)

Background and Objectives: Medical confidentiality and maintenance of patient personal privacy are considered two important moral obligations in medical ethics with a long history in medicine. To be efficient, a healthcare system needs active participation of and appropriate cooperation between the recipients and providers of healthcare services. This study was conducted to investigate healthcare service recipients' perceptions regarding observance of patient privacy and medical confidentiality in teaching healthcare centers affiliated with the Qom University of Medical Sciences. Methods: In this cross-sectional (...) (descriptive-analytical) study that was conducted in 2015-2016, 380 patients referred to teaching healthcare centers affiliated with the Qom University of Medical Sciences were enrolled according to randomized sampling. Data were gathered by a researcher-developed questionnaire according to Patient Rights Charter and analyzed by descriptive and nonparametric statistics test in SPSS 16. Results: Patient privacy and confidentiality were not observed from the perspectives of 26.3% of them, partly observed from the perspectives of 50%, and fully observed from the perspectives of 23.7%. Alongside observance of patient privacy, the most important item, from the healthcare service recipients' perspectives, was observance of client orientation, which was observed from the perspectives of 24.5% of them, partly observed from the perspectives of 50.4%, and not observed from the perspectives of 25.1%. Conclusion: From half of the patients' perspectives in the healthcare centers affiliated with the Qom University of Medical Sciences, patient privacy and medical confidentiality were partly observed. Therefore, the authorities can take necessary steps to set priorities and appropriately plan for improving observance of the patient privacy and medical confidentiality as well as to respect the patients' territory and rights in all areas, especially nursing, administrative, educational, and research. (shrink)