Health & social care in the community
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Health Soc Care Community · May 2017
Patient companions in the Turkish healthcare system: the role, expectations and problems.
The purpose of this study was to determine the roles, expectations and problems of patient companions and to develop solutions to the difficulties encountered by the nurses, patients and their companions. A qualitative approach with semi-structured face-to-face interviews was used during May and June 2014 to collect data. A convenience sample of participants was selected from the nurses, patients and their companions. ⋯ As companions are witness to a patient's declining health and family, social and financial problems, their role should be to support their patients emotionally or socially, but they should not perform medical tasks. Therefore, the agencies responsible for managing the use of patient companions should regularly review its function by communicating often with the patients and their caregivers. Open communication between patient companions and all those responsible for patient care could improve the present difficulties which exist.
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Health Soc Care Community · May 2017
Depression and discrimination in the lives of women, transgender and gender liminal people in Ontario, Canada.
This article uses an intersectionality lens to explore how experiences of race, gender, sexuality, class and their intersections are associated with depression and unmet need for mental healthcare in a population of 704 women and transgender/gender liminal people from Ontario, Canada. A survey collecting demographic information, information about mental health and use of mental healthcare services, and data for the Everyday Discrimination Scale and the PHQ-9 Questionnaire for Depression was completed by 704 people via Internet or pen-and-paper between June 2011 and June 2012. Bivariate and regression analyses were conducted to assess group differences in depression and discrimination experiences, and predictors of depression and unmet need for mental healthcare services. ⋯ Everyday discrimination was the strongest predictor of both depression and unmet need for mental healthcare. The results suggest lower income and intersections of race with other marginalised identities are associated with more depression and unmet need for mental healthcare; however, discrimination is the factor that contributes the most to those vulnerabilities. Future research can build on intersectionality theory by foregrounding the role of structural inequities and discrimination in promoting poor mental health and barriers to healthcare.