Introduction
The research digest presented below refers to a study conducted by N. ROUSSIAU, J. LECAILLON and M. CHALMIN and deals with the social representation of health care quality for patients and nurses in medical institutions. This investigation is inspired by the need to construct questionnaires evaluating health care quality in order to enhance and ensure the satisfaction of patients in hospital.
To begin with, scientist have listed practices concerning satisfaction surveys in various medical institutions. This inventory reveals that the most frequent themes are “general satisfaction” and “hospitality/catering” in usual questionnaires. However, users’ associations also emphasize themes such as «relationships with medical teams» and «information and psychological support».
Since the notion of quality is quite wide-ranging, researchers consider that its definition reliers on social representation. Thus, they assume that nurses and patients do not have the same social representation of what « quality » means.
Theory
In line with the theoretical field of Moscovici, the authors think that the social representations are constituted by a central and a peripheral system. The central system includes the strongest and the most stable items of the social representation whereas the peripheral system includes more flexible elements, connected to immediate and personal context. That is why we speak of potential zones of change.
Method
Scientists have interviewed 80 participants (40 nurses and 40 patients) in cardiovascular disorders with the following question: ” what does the heath care quality mean for you? Give between five and eight words and underline the most significant words “.
The analysis of the word frequency and the occurrence average rank, called in psychology “prototypical analysis”, allows to locate central system elements in the social representation of both populations.
Results
Firstly, the prototypical analysis of patients of cardiovascular disorders reveals that terms like “welcome”, “availability” and “kindness” are the most quoted and have a higher priority. Secondly, the prototypical analysis of answers of caregivers shows that for them, heath care quality refers to “welcome”, “availability”, “listening”, “information”, “hygiene”, and “comfort”.
Consequently, the comparison of both populations enables to partially verify the hypothesis. Indeed, « welcome » and « availability » are central to define the heath care quality for every people. We can so affirm that one part of the representation is similar. However, we observe all the significant differences between groups. On the one hand, patients have high expectations concerning the attitude of the staff, referring to human and relational qualities. On the other hand, the medical staff nurses center more on professional aspects or environmental conditions (“listening”, “information”, “hygiene”, and “comfort”).
Conclusion
The present study has been widened in other departments: general medicine, bone surgery and digestive surgery. The same tendencies have been found.
With these results, social researchers illustrate that it is essential to revise the satisfaction survey in hospitals so as to include more questions concerning human and relational qualities of nurses and minimize technical points, which are less important for patients.
In conclusion, social representations permit to better estimate the satisfaction and are a relevant evaluation grid that enables researches to determine the expectations and perceptions of the public in various sectors.
Really interested in social and work psychology, I go back to university to get the title of psychologist and to advance in my carrer. Indeed, I have already a rich professional experience in the field of social and professional integration, especially with young people. Later, I want to continue to work with vulnérable people such as youngs or seniors job seeker , handicapped person …
Moreover, I’m new resident in the Nantes region and discover every days with pleasure this area.