[Images and experiences of being a patient through the viewpoint of persons who have visited the health care system].

Abstract

This article describes the images and experiences of being patient by the viewpoint of persons who have visited health care system. The purpose is to expand knowledge of the starting points and improvement of good care. The description of the subject is based on the data gathered by focused interviews (N = 60) during the spring 1989. The data was analysed in two phases. Images and experiences of being patient were identified and classified to establish concepts, which describe data as a whole. Analyses were carried out according to Grounded theory-method. Those who were interviewed expected a person as a patient to be active and to take care of her rights during the care or to be obedient. They named many reasons why patients are passive and shy. They also described patients' troublesome behaviour in many different ways. Those who were interviewed had been patients in five different styles. Styles were connected with peoples' individual ways of being healthy and their basic belief of life control. According to the study the goodness of care is partly affected by the norms of being patient in health care system and partly by the human being's own choices to be patient. It seems that patients who were active were heard better during the care than the passive ones. According to the study the development of good nursing care requires the analyses of good nursing care requires the analyses and the expanding of the norms of being a patient and the establishing of the data gathering methods describing a patient as a person.