Hospital Humanization

Hospital humanization is not limited to establish a comfortable place for patients recover, improve medical equipment and train health workers, it should include the enhancement of relationship, communication, emphatic behavior between hospital users, i.e. it's necessary to physical and psychological well-being of the patients and health workers, which contribute significantly to overall quality of care and satisfaction. Objectives-(1) To assess the spatial-physical and functional design attributes of the hospital under a humanized hospital paradigm. (2) To assess the levels of humanized care of patients received and the satisfaction among hospital users. Methods-A cross-sectional study included 204 subjects including inpatients, outpatients, visitors/companions, health professionals, as well as administrative staff in a university hospital was conducted. Subjects completed questionnaires including the demographic characteristics, physical environment variables and social environment variables, questions related to relationship and communication between health professionals and patients, work conditions and professionals' suggestions to humanize the hospital. Results-The results showed that 22 (10.78%) subjects think the hospital is low humanized,90 (44.12%) subjects think the hospital is medium humanized and 92 (45.09%) subjects think the hospital is high humanized. However, the results showed a certain level of dissatisfaction toward the external area, noise, toilet and the space that health professionals use to take rest. Health professionals and patients were medium satisfied with the relationship and communication between them. Patients do not have an active participation during the consultation. Outpatients and health professionals were unsatisfied with the time spent dialoguing with each other and the time spent in the consultation room. Moreover, a good percentage confirmed that health professionals do not explain side effects of medication. In relation to work conditions, the results indicated that in general, they were satisfied. However, some negative points emerged such as health professionals were low satisfied with wage and time spent at work. Outpatients appeared as most unsatisfied with administrative procedures and waiting time. Conclusions-The author concluded that the hospital under study approached a humanized hospital and offered humanized care to patients. Moreover, patients and companions overall were satisfied with hospital environment than staff. The present study suggests that health professionals should instigate more participation of the patient during the consultation and pay more attention to explaining the major side effect of medication, and hospital administrators should take into account about the low level of satisfaction regarding wage and work time of health professionals.