Assessment of Patients’ Attitude Towards the Use of Radiology Changing Room and Changing Facilities
Chapter One
PURPOSE OF STUDY
This study is aimed at assessing the attitude of patients towards the radiology changing room and changing facilities.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
- To determine the attitude of patients towards the room and use of its facilities.
- To determine some of the factors influencing these attitudes.
- To find out if there are any significant differences in patients’ attitude towards radiology changing room and its facilities in the selected public and private hospitals
CHAPTER TWO
THEORITICAL BACKGROUND.
ASSESSMENT OF ATTITUDE.
Assessment.
Assessment is the process of gathering and reflecting on evidence to make informed and consistent judgements to improve the understanding of a situation31. It is a process of making a judgement or forming an opinion after considering something or someone carefully. In the field of teaching and learning, Assessmnet can be of three types viz: formative, summative or authentic.
Formative assessment. This is a range of formal and informal assessment procedures employed by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment. It typically involves qualitative feedback (rather than scores) for both student and teacher that focuses on the details of content and performance. It is the process used by teachers and students to recognise and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning, during the learning.
Formative assessment is about assessment for learning as opposed to summative where assessment is of learning. It is assessment that can range from the very informal to the very formal in its design but the key thing is that it gives feedback to students so that they can move forward in their learning. It will identify the standard of work that a student is presently achieving thus providing information about progress to date. This will in itself help a student to understand what is expected of him/her in relation to academic expectations and give suggestions as to how to develop work further in order to improve. For this to happen it is important that feedback is meaningful to the student and this works best when there is opportunity for discussion of the feedback.
Summative assessment (or summative evaluation) refers to the assessment of the learning and summarizes the development of learners at a particular time. Summative assessment focuses on learning completed. It is the formal testing of what has been learned in order to produce marks or grades which may be used for future reports of various types.
Authentic assessment: is an umbrella concept that refers to the measurement of intellectual accomplishments that are worthwhile, significant, and meaningful. A form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills. It involves engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replicas of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the given field of study.
Patient assessment. Patient assessment is geared towards provision of care and the relief of suffering. Effective implementation of management strategies to relieve suffering must be based on a comprehensive assessment of the whole patient. Assessment must recognize that patients’ experience (and parents’ experience if the patient is a child) of illness is multidimensional and includes: disease history, physical symptoms, psychological symptoms, decision-making capacity, information sharing, social circumstances, spiritual needs, and practical needs.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Rsearch Design.
This is a survey prospective research, aimed at assessing the attitude of patients towards the use of radiology changing rooms and changing facilities. This design is chosen because it is the most widely used type of design in research involving human beings.
Target Population.
The study popullation constituted all adult outpatients visiting the x-ray department of UNTH (University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital Enugu), NOHE (National Orthopaedic Hosital Enugu), NFH (Niger Foundation Hospital), who were available at the department when the questionnaires were distributed.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION OF RESULT
Data Analysis
The data collected from the questionnaire were analysed using mean score tables. The mean score of each item in the questionaire was computed, thus:
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION, SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS, AREAS OF FURTHER STUDY, CONCLUSION AND LIMITATIONS OF STUDY
DISCUSSION
The findings of this study revealed that patients’ impression about the physical condition of x-ray changing room is a significant factor influencing their attitudes towards the use of the room and its facilities. This is consistent with Gotlieb9 findings that patients’ perceptions of hospital rooms could influence patients’ perception of hospital quality. According to Gupta et al7, it is recommended that 2-4 well-lit and ventilated cubicles for each x-ray machine should be provided. Moreover, Coulter et al12 evaluation of the London Patient Choice Scheme found that a high standard of cleanliness was rated as the second most important factor that would influence patients’ choice of hospital; and Page et al14 found that cleanliness was one of the most important factors to patients when choosing a hospital, and it ranked as the top mentioned by 54% of those interviewed. According to Whitehead et al19, pateints’ perception of cleanliness lies on three major factors: appearance of the environment, physical cleanliness and staff behaviour.
In addition, the study revealed that the attitudes of patients towards radiology changing rooms and changing facilities are influenced by lack of adequate facilities in the x-ray changing rooms. This strongly supports that adequate provision of benches, mirrors and hangers for clothes in the x-ray changing rooms is vital for sactisfactory use of the changing rooms by patients. This is in line with several other studies like Woodside et al8 which stressed that equipment and facilities are important factors that hospital patients seek to optimize.
The findings also showed that concern for hygiene of x-ray changing gowns influences patients’ attitudes towards the use of radiology changing rooms and facilities. Fritizsche4 noted that every accessory in the radiology department appears contaminated in the eyes of the uninformed patient. Since patients arriving at the x-ray department are often worried or apprehensive, hence the need for adequate reassurance from the radiographer (Okaro2). Cleanliness standards are highly influential in patients’ choice of hospital because poor standards of hygiene likely increase the risk of contracting infections. A study16 revealed that health care facilities can be dangerous places for the acquisition of infections. Furthermore, Rosen et al18, found that people believe that hospital related infections are less in smaller, private hospitals due to higher standard of cleanliness. X-ray department is expected to extensively alleviate patients’ worries about the cleanliness of changing gown and the likely-hood to harbor infections. In a report by Roberts27, he buttressed that changing gowns are exceptionally important to patients, when visiting the hospital.
Finally, the study revealed that x-ray changing gowns affect patients’ dignity. This agrees with a research finding, Woogara21, that majority of patients feel very undignified in their hospital gowns; which nagatively affects patients’ perception of health care (Jacelon24). As indicated in Table 6, patients feel ashamed to appear in x-ray changing gowns as they are too revealing.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
- Physical environment of the Changing rooms affects patients’ willingness to use the room.
- Attitudes of patients towards radiology changing rooms and changing facilities are influenced by lack of adequate facilities in the x-ray changing rooms.
- Concern for hygiene of x-ray changing gowns influences patients’ attitudes towards the use of radiology changing room facilities.
- X-ray changing gowns affect patients’ privacy.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- There should be an improvement in the standard of the physical environment of the x-ray changing rooms.
- There should be adequate provision of changing room faclities
- Standard and efficient laundry services should be established by x-ray departments, to ensure that patients are always provided with neat and germ-free gowns
- New and modern patterns of changing gowns should be adopted so as to promote patients dignity and privacy.
AREAS OF FURTHER STUDY
(1) Assessment of patients’ attitude towards the radiology waiting area
(2) Evaluation of health implication of infections associated with the changing gowns.
CONCLUSION
This study, on the assessment of patients’ attitude towards the use of x-ray changing room and changing facilities, has shown that: the physical environment; changing room facilities; hygiene and dignity are factors that affect patients attitude towards the use of x-ray changing room and changing facilities. However, the researcher believes that if the recommendations made in this research are adopted, there will be an effective improvement on the patients attitude and hence, on the general compliance of patients to radiology investigations.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
(1) Some of the shared questionnaires were not returned by the respondents
(2) One of the selected private hospitals denied the researcher access to the radiology changing rooms and patients. This affected the sample size.
(3) The sample size used for the study may not be a good representation of the entire population.
References
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- Okaro, A.O. Evaluation of patient care in Radio-Diagnostic Departments in Enugu, Nigeria. European Journal of Scientific Research. 2010, Vol. 41 No. 2 pp. 310-314.
- Lewis, F. DCR(T), DCR(R). Pateint’s response to illness and hospitalisation. J. Radiograhpy. 1986, Vol. 52 No. 602.
- Fritizsche, P J. Communication: the key to improved patient care. radiology.rsna.org. Last accessed 25/3/2012.
- Berengere de Negri, Lori DiPrete Brown, Orlando Hernandez, Julia Rosenbaum and Debra Roter. Improving interpersonal communication between providers and clients. www.globalhealthcommunication.org/tool_docs/47/qap. Last accessed 3/3/2012.
- Hickey, M. Important considerations in planning an x ray departments. Radiological Society of North America. www.radiology.rsna.org/…/104.extract. Last accessed 25/2/2012.
- Kant Gupta, shakhi Kumar Gupta. Modern trends in planning and designing of hospital: principles and practice.www. jaypeedigital.com. Last accessed 2/02/2012.
- Woodside AG, Nielsen R L, Walters F, and Muller GD. Preference segmentation of health care services: the old-fashioned, value conscious, affluent and professional want-it-alls. J Health Care Mark. 1988;8:14–24.
- Gotlieb, J. B. Understanding the effects of nurses, patients’ hospital rooms, and patients’ perception of control on the perceived quality of a hospital. Health Mark Q. 2000;18:1–14.
- Akinci, F., Esatoglu, A. E., Tengilimoglu, D. and Parsons A. Hospital choice factors: a case study in Turkey. Health Mark Q. 2004;22:3–19.
