Question

PICO

PATIENT OR PROBLEM- improving staff communication

How would you describe a group of patients similar to yours? What are the most important characteristics of the patient?

Answer 1

The word patient originally meant 'one who suffers', basically from the Latin word patiens. It’s a word with a wide range of meaning. Patients can be divided into many different groups according to their characteristics and the way they suffer. I would like to describe a group of patients with whom I used to deal with. It is the group of elderly. The most difficult group to deal with and care for. However it’s a blessing to care for elderly in this era of people, where the parents are ignored by own children.

Aging is a fact of life and it affects the families as well as the society. Most of the time, we may not fully understand the extent to which their aging will affect them or how it will affect us. Indeed, if they are already aged and still in good health and living independently we may not feel any dramatic changes or concerns. However, the time does come when effects of aging become more evident and long-term care may be needed.

However it is really hard to describe this group. But there is an overall decline in physical and mental vitality, which may result in visible and even drastic changes to their appearance, the standard of life, and emotional well-being. That’s the main reason for them to be aggressive and depressed sometimes. So, people really need patients to deal with them.

Again, it’s important to the overall well-being of elderly parents that their activities of daily living are taken care effectively and consistently. They need help when there are obstacles or difficulties with doing these tasks alone. Taking an honest look at where an elderly parent needs support is the first step and then assess at all the possible solutions in order get them the help they need and also to lead the best possible life they can.

Characteristics can be explained as a feature or quality belonging typically to a person, place, or thing and serving to identify them. When we deal with the patients, the common features that help to identify them can be considered as patient characteristics. It is an important determinant of preferences regarding many aspects of primary health care. Studies explain that the patient characteristics have showed at least some significant associations with preferences for health care.

Some of these characteristics include: the number of un-referred and consultative ambulatory visits, patient age and gender, socio-economic status (SES), the number of hospital admissions per year, complications / co morbidities, mental health conditions and continuity of care. The common characteristics considered while giving care includes the age, gender, religion, ethnicity, type of illness, duration of illness, availability of support.

The characteristics of patient can be various according to the illness they suffer with. People with acute illness act differently than the one with chronic conditions. However, as it is mentioned above, these all can affect a person being patient as well as the health care team who deal with him. Therefore, people with long term conditions may have similar way of features and the same for people who are acutely ill. So, I recommend that it is important to understand their characteristics before considering them as patients or caring for them. That would enhance the quality of care provided for them.