Inclusive, unconstrained and honest communication is widely advocated as beneficial and ethical. We critically explore this assumption by reflecting upon our research in acute care, informal care and public health. Using Habermas' ideals of dialogue to conceptualise ideal speech, we concur with observations that health care is often characterised by intractable exclusions and constraints. Rathe...

Background Informal payments for health care, which are common in many countries, can have negative effects on health care access, equity and health status as they lead people to forgo or delay seeking care, or to sell assets to pay for care. Many countries are putting reforms in place with the aim of reducing informal payments. In order to be successful, such policies should be informed by the...

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND The early post-discharge period is a vulnerable time for older patients with complex care requirements. This paper identifies factors predicting a self-reported successful post-discharge outcome for patients aged 80 years and over by exploring factors related to the discharge process, the provision of formal home-care services, informal care and characteristics of th...

This paper explores the use of social awareness support as a potential solution to alleviate informal care al, and emotional load habitually associated with their duties. This is a preliminary contribution of the Vienna University of Technology to TOPIC project that is currently under development. In this paper we report on relevant literature, identify and consider technological and interactio...

This is a descriptive, interpretive and qualitative study carried out at the ICU of a Brazilian teaching hospital. It aimed to understand the dimensions of human caring experienced by health care professionals, clients and their family members at an ICU, based on human caring complexity. The Transpersonal Caring and Complexity theories support theory and data analysis. The following dimensions ...

BACKGROUND Demographic and socioeconomic changes have increased policy interest in informal carers. However, despite the multicultural nature of British society, most research in this field has been in majority communities. AIM To explore the role of the primary health care team (PHCT) in supporting carers from British South Asian communities. DESIGN OF STUDY Qualitative study. SETTING Fo...

OBJECTIVES To explore systematically the care seeking trajectories of tuberculosis (TB) cases up to four subsequent places of care and to assess the type of services provided at each place. METHODS TB cases detected actively during the 2007-2009 national TB prevalence survey and passively under the routine programme in the same period were interviewed by administering a standardised questionn...

Cross-sectional evidence in the United States finds that informal caregivers have less attachment to the labor force. The causal mechanism is unclear: do children who work less become informal caregivers, or are children who become caregivers working less? Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study, we identify the relationship between informal care and work in the United Stat...

Approaches to improving quality of longterm care services People depending on long-term care belong to the most vulnerable group in society. Some will need help, assistance and support for the rest of their lives. Yet, little is known and much has been conjectured about the extent to which long-term care (services) actually meet the needs of dependent people and support a self-determined life. ...

OBJECTIVE To present a tool to analyse the design of support plans for informal care from a gender perspective, using the plans in Andalusia and the United Kingdom as case studies. METHODOLOGY A tool was drawn up to analyse gender mainstreaming and care-giving models involved in the documents. In the gender mainstreaming aspect, a symbolic dimension (gender mainstreaming in the plan's theoret...