Research Paper on Communication and Patient Behaviors

Abstract

Communication is a vital facet of our daily lives. It is therefore essential to develop effective communication to ensure our message is passed. The hearing is a significant part of communication. Hearing stands at the centre of any communication. This paper reviews patient satisfaction in any health care centre is a dynamic that depends on the aptitude of the health centre to deliver pertinent amenities that would make the most of management of the patient's prerequisites at the shortest time conceivable. This shows that time and patient satisfaction is a universal factor to consider when reviewing patient satisfaction in the health centre (Skinner, 1988). Hearing aids are instruments an emerging trend in the handling of hearing impairments in different regions of the world. This paper analyses new trends and technologies are developed from time to time by health professionals to help patients deal with problems concerning hearing. Health practitioners are always working with scientists to study sound and its effects on the human body.

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Introduction

This research was done to analyze the effect of the use of hearing aid to patient satisfaction in Nuffield Hearing and speech center. Additionally, it seeks to explain the effect of hearing aid in patient behaviors. It also seeks to review literature on various hearing aid implications on the way that patient satisfaction is perceived. With this information, this research seeks to create a rubric for which individuals can understand the implications of hearing aid devices on patients and how they react to the type of service that is offered to them. This study will develop and implement a survey on hearing aid patients from the Nuffield hearing and speech centre. Additionally, this study will review the problems and limitations that hearing aid patients encounter in their usage of hearing aid devices. This study will also identify practical information that is used in the study of the effects of hearing aid on patient satisfaction in Nuffield hearing and speech center.

Aspects of Patient Satisfaction

Patient satisfaction is a highly desirable outcome in clinical care. This factor can be an element of health status in itself. The expressions of satisfaction or dissatisfaction by a patient are defined as the judgment on the quality of health care that a health care avails in all of its aspects.

Regarding its strengths and limitations, patient satisfaction is an indicator of the ability to dispense health services by a health centre as a measure of the quality of care. From a patient's perspective, health centres can be unfriendly and scary places at times (Baldwin, 2003). This poses as a risk to the way that the patient may perceive health services. This means that the environment plays a significant role in determining the result of how a patient feels about the health service given to him or her. Patient satisfaction is a relative phenomenon that has been around since the 1960s but inactive until the early 1980's where the health industry started changing from due to changes in the needs of patients in different regions of the world. Patient satisfaction embodies the expectation that a patient has towards a certain health service. The possibility of a patient being satisfied with a certain service is related to the perceived need to get the best out of what is offered to them. Various theories have been developed to define methods to which patient satisfaction is affected in the health sector. An example of such theories is the expectancy-value theory that seeks to explain the beliefs of patients, their values and prior expectations relating to the effect of health care in any setting. Another approach is the health care quality theory that delineates the emphasis that the health care industry has put in processing interpersonal health care, and its paramount roles in ensuring patient care and developed are streamlined with patients' satisfactory needs.

The determinants of patient satisfaction are profoundly dependent on the needs of the patient and the resources that a health care centre has put in delivering health care services. These determinants can either be patient-related or provide related. Patient-related determinants are those are entirely dependent on the values and feelings of a patient towards a certain health service. On the other hand, provide related determinants are those that exclusively depend on the delivery of service by the health care provides (Satalof, 2005). Examples of patient-related contributors are socio-economic traits together with patient perceptions about the link between feeling and trusts when making health care related decisions in a health setting.

Additionally, the stage of disease of a patient is a contributing factor to the way that a patient will be satisfied after receiving health care. Provider-related factors include interpersonal communication skills, physician's proficiency, access to care, the time is taken and access to infrastructure and basic facilities in the health centre. All of these factors are correlated to define ways in which a patient would understand certain health services. In turn, health care providers should make sure that the care provided is kept at its best regarding coordination of activities and attend to patients. Modern-day patients are more educated and aware and have more access to information regarding the health system. This builds up expectations of what level of care the patient should receive at any health care service centre.

In the modern health setting, it is vital for the health care provider to address related to the delivery of service in the context of the patients' perceptions of the services. A patient with optimistic acuities is most likely to have a greater chance of translating it into positive feedback. Conversely, patients will any negative comment or review of service is more likely to have a negative attitude towards a health care provider (Mango, 1991). This will translate into negative perceptions of the health amenity hence lessen the overall gratification of the patient. In extreme cases, some patients may resort to bad mouthing of health care providers which would later lead to violence if the situation is not handled in time. This generally discourages other patients from seeking certain or all services from a health care provider. When low-quality health care is perceived, an individual is less likely to seek services from the specific health care provider. Therefore, the reasons for emphasizing patient satisfaction has a direct relationship with the compliance of patients to doctors' instructions and apt seeking of health services. When patients can comply with the above factors, they are guaranteed to have a better comprehension of the services provided in a health centre and hence have better reviews of the type and quality of service that was provided to them. All these dynamics ensure an auspicious effect of the service provided. Quality health care in a health centre is indicated by patient satisfaction. When patients are satisfied with the services provided, this shows that a health care provider is availing high-quality care that can meet the needs of the patients. Assessment of patient satisfaction can help private health centres improve health care services together with the delivery system of this health care based on the feedback and input of the patient.

Patients’ Help-Seeking Behaviors

Help-seeking behaviors hypothesize that individuals are likely to follow a series of steps that are predictable when seeking help for their health needs. This series of actions are well ordered and purposefully selected to guide the decisions that a person makes when trying to seek help in health care service centres. Various cognitive and behavioral steps are involved in the development of the model used in making such decisions. Help-seeking theories for patients have been developed to guide medical practitioners in their responsibility in creating a medical setting that best fits the needs of a patient at any point and time. These theories seek similarity in the processes that patients around the world have used in creating steps for seeking help. These behaviors are motivated by various psychological and environmental and psychological factors to drive an individual's urge to make decisions when choosing the services to seek. Help-seeking behaviors are dependent on three main factors (National Institute of aging, 2005). These factors are the intention to seek help, attitudes and actual help-seeking behavior. Intentions to seek help are those factors that make a person suffering from a condition have an urge to seek a health service however small the condition might be. Patients may sometimes see it impractical to seek medical intercession when suffering from some trifling conditions. In such cases, the patient is responsible for making efforts and get help to ease their exposure to risk factors that may be fatal. Patients' attitudes define the perception of the method of seeking that is to be taken (Cornally & McCarthy, 2011). When a patient's attitude is in line with the services that are provided at a centre, the patient is motivated to seek medical help.

On the other hand, actual seeking help for patients means that he or she sees it fit that health service is the best solution to the condition that they are suffering from. It is always advisable for individuals to seek medical help whenever they are exposed to certain conditions or feel unusual. This is to ensure that all of the risks that they may have been exposed to are realized at an early stage.

Help-seeking behaviors are divided into two variations, non-adaptive behaviors and adaptive behaviors. Adaptive behaviors depend on a person's recognition, insight and curiosity to try an overcome difficulty in their health while ensuring that the problem is conta...