Improving Healthcare Interactions: Professional Relationships
Inappropriate Healthcare Professional Attitudes
Examples of Unhelpful Behaviors:
- Forceful Solutions: Always providing solutions forcefully, dictating actions instead of collaborating.
- Restricting Questions: Asking questions that prevent the patient from expressing themselves freely. Example: “You can only eat that?”
- Inappropriate Reactions: Reacting violently to perceived inappropriate behavior or laughing at stressful situations. Example: A patient experiencing an erection during washing.
- False Hope: Giving false hope to severely ill patients. Example: Telling a severely ill patient, “You’ll see, things will go well.”
- Blaming the Patient: Blaming the patient for their condition. Example: “If you hadn’t drunk so much, you wouldn’t be here.”
- Avoiding Difficult Patients: Avoiding contact with patients who evoke negative feelings.
- Over-Identifying: Becoming overly influenced by patients’ problems.
Addressing Healthcare Professional Burnout
It is a demanding profession, and highly motivated individuals can experience burnout. Understanding this syndrome and implementing preventive measures is crucial.
Interpersonal Relations in Healthcare
Healthcare Professional and Patient Relationship
The relationship begins when the patient seeks medical care for a health problem causing concern or suffering.
Healthcare Professional and Staff Relationship
Healthcare involves a multidisciplinary team (physicians, pharmacists, nurses, psychologists, physiotherapists, etc.) with diverse backgrounds but a common goal: patient health. The professional role encompasses the functions performed by each team member.
Essential Elements for Effective Teamwork:
- Shared Goal: All members have a common, accepted goal.
- Defined Roles: Each individual’s professional role is well-defined.
- Problem-Solving: Each member is inclined to identify problems, find solutions, and implement them.
- Open Communication: Open and honest communication exists among team members.
- Mutual Respect: A statement of acceptance and mutual respect is present among members.
Healthcare Professional and Patient’s Family Relationship
Family members often have strong emotional connections, so one member’s problems affect others. With illness, the family is involved in:
- Facilitating the patient’s adaptation to illness.
- Reducing their isolation.
- Collaborating with the team in caring for the sick.
- Providing useful information for professionals.
Factors Influencing Family Response to Illness:
The family’s socio-economic status, emotional relationships, external social and economic support, and previous experiences with the disease all play a role. The impact varies depending on the sick family member (e.g., parent vs. child). Concerns include social, economic, and household responsibilities. Parents may experience fear or guilt, especially if the child is young.