Assessment of Patients Perceptions

Caring has been widely discussed in the health care professions, especially in nursing which is considered to be one of the caring professions (Boykin and Schoenhofer 2001). Watson (1985) describes caring as a moral ideal of nursing. According to Watson, caring preserves human dignity in cure dominated health care systems and becomes a standard by which cure is measured (Watson 1988c, p. 177). Research literature indicates that the assessment of quality of care from the patient’s perspective has been operationalised as patient satisfaction (Dufrene 2000). Nurse caring has been related to patient satisfaction in western literature (Wolf et al 2003; Wolf et al 1998; Forbes and Brown 1995; Boyle et al 1989). There are so many factors that influence patients’ perceptions of care given by the opposite sex. Some of these are: Age, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic and health status. The most consistent finding has been related to age. Older patients tend to be more satisfied with their health care. Studies that have looked at ethnicity have generally held that being a member of a minority group is associated with lower rates of satisfaction. Studies on the effect of gender show that women tend to be less satisfied and other studies show the opposite. Most studies have found that individuals of lower socio-economic status and less education tend to be less satisfied with their health care. Other studies have shown that poorer satisfaction with care is associated with experiencing worry, depression, fear or hopelessness, as is having a psychiatric diagnosis such as schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or drug abuse. Health status can greatly influence satisfaction of an individual (Hall, 1990). It is important to examine the relationships of nurse caring to patient satisfaction in Cape Coast because of severe staff shortages, heavy workload, and low salaries in Cape Coast Hospitals. Nursing literature had long recognized importance of these perceptions as major factors militating against prompt and effective service delivery in the care environment. One of the critical roles and ethics of the nurse is to treat all patients irrespective of their gender, colour, creed, political inclination and religious affiliations. High quality nurse-client communication is the backbone of the art and science of nursing. It has a significant impact on patient well-being as well as the quality and outcome of nursing care, and is related to patients’ overall satisfaction with their care. The maintenance of high nurse patient communication also depends on the nurse and patient. The quality of care in a hospital has been shown to be influenced by several factors including: inadequate nursing staff, lack of regular water supply on wards, too much nursing documentation, too long waiting time, and lack of specialized nurses. In Ghana, there is crisis in nurse-client communication evidence from four sources. These are personal observation, anecdotes from client and their families, media reports, and official health reports. Although there is ample evidence to demonstrate that most nurses are females, one cannot discount the enormous services that male nurses provide irrespective of their gender. The ever increasing number of female nurses compared to male nurses in our wards, coupled with patient dissatisfaction toward treatment received has raised a lot of questions as to whether there is a perceived idea that male nurses offer better care or otherwise. With the introduction of Health Insurance a few years ago, more patients report to the hospital and are also consciously aware of their rights and responsibilities as patients and hence will demand for better service delivery from care givers. Recently, patient dissatisfaction has been on the ascendancy in several hospitals across Ghana including University of Cape Coast Hospital. This has raised a lot of concerns about the perceptions patients have regarding the care given by male nurses.

Essay on Womenand Film Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

On Womenand Film - Essay Example Boys Don’t Cry explores a number of themes including identity, empowerment, freedom, and courage. However, gender representation underpins all these themes. This paper will examine the representation of gender in Boys Don’t Cry, describing the key aspects of gender representation both in society and in the film. Representation of gender in the film adds force to the patriarchal norms held by the society. Discussions of the topic of gender in film owe their origins to conventional feminist film theorists who considered films as male-dominated and immensely guilty of gender stereotyping. In this examination of Boys Don’t Cry, the popular gender theory becomes highly applicable to determine the degree to which gender representation supports stereotypes. The Jacques Lacan and Sigmund Freud developed the psychoanalytical theory that profoundly influenced the early feminist film theory (Herz 51). However, the psychoanalytic theory had substantive problems such as its p hallic-centric basis. This led to the development of alternative discussion mechanisms such as the cultural studies mechanism. In this analysis of Boys Don’t Cry, I will utilize both approaches to cover the entire scope of gender representation. ... Male characters define women by their appearances; for instance, during the bar scene, Candace is the object of the male gaze owing to her attractiveness; then later, the facade changes to that of a mother. Lana, on the other hand, is the object of both Brandon and John’s voyeuristic or sexual gaze. This essentially means that men consider women as sex objects placed in the world for their pleasure. In contrast, men in the film are far too active to become the focus of a sexual gaze. According to Mulvey (37), this phenomenon is essential because of men’s fear to acknowledge homoerotic desires. In addition, it is only acceptable for a man to be represented as a spectacle if such representation unites with the narrative to place emphasis on the man’s active role in the storyline. This exemplifies the stereotype of gender roles where males are subjective beings and females are objective, the objects of males’ desires. Distinctively, the character of Brandon, nonetheless, appears to be at odds with this perception. This is because several scenes in Boys Don’t Cry focus primarily on Brandon’s sexual appearance. Notably, Brandon’s appearance becomes central to the narrative without the element of action. This warrants the question if a similar tactics would apply if Brandon were a male. If Brandon were, in reality, a male, this would raise questions of homoeroticism, but since he is perceived as a female, this suggestion becomes inapplicable. In addition, Brandon’s attention to detail as she creates her male persona echoes the contemporary views on image construction, in which the female body is highly industrialized – for instance, for a woman to attain femininity, she must

Why Nomadic People Developed Complex Civilization Essay

Why Nomadic People Developed Complex Civilization - Essay Example They would move to a place that they considered economically better than their current situation (Goldin et al 120). There were three categories of Nomadic people, hunters and gatherers, pastoral, and wandering Nomads. Hunters and gatherers nomads were communities moving from one location to another in search of wild meat, fruits, and vegetables. Pastoral nomads’ movement were influenced by the availability of water and pastures for their cattle, they were settling in places with good pasture for their animals, and when pastures and water were exhausted in these locations, they would move to another location with greener pasture and water. On account of their movement and interaction with various communities, modern day civilization was born that led to the development of different economic empires and rise of military structure. Another of factors made nomadic people settle, build and develop complex civilization. Firstly, the development of new methods agriculture as time passes by made nomads to settle in one place because there was a way to control drought through irrigating their land. Also, through improved irrigation system, pastoralist were able to store enough water for their animals and at the same time irrigate land reserved for pasture so that they do not run animal feeds.