Giving voice to patients

Small wins matter in advocacy movements: giving voice to patients.

In this article, the various players are delineated in a story of a contested illness and patient advocacy, played out within the corridors of federal power. It is suggested that the mistreatment and negative attitudes that health care providers and others have towards those with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is possibly due to the social construction of this illness as being a "Yuppie flu" di...

Giving Voice to Vulnerable Populations: Rogerian Theory

The human condition of vulnerability is a concept of vital concern to nurses, in that a large portion of nursing practice is spent either helping individuals who fi nd themselves in a vulnerable position or helping them avoid vulnerability. Nursing, however, has been slow in developing theoretical constructs of vulnerability within a nursing perspective (Spiers, 2000). Traditional defi nitions ...

Giving voice to adolescent mothers’ challenges

An estimated 32% to 60% of adolescent mothers experience postpartum depression. Young women who deal with the simultaneous developmental tasks of adolescence and parenting are vulnerable to depression, which affects the welfare of both the mother and child. The primary objective of this qualitative study was to appreciate the unique experiences of adolescent mothers. Seventeen postpartum adoles...

Giving control to patients.

Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro: giving a voice to children.

In early 2003, the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked the Brazilian human rights expert Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro to lead a study into the violence perpetrated against the world’s children. During the next 3 years, he worked to expose the scope of violence against children and its impact on their lives. Pinheiro’s report made unhappy reading. Violence against children was widespread, he fou...