Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA.
Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2010;3:41-50. doi: 10.2147/prbm.s9149. Epub 2010 Mar 19.
In response to the increasing complexity of the health care system, the field of health advocacy has emerged. However, little is known about factors that may influence a person's likelihood of hiring a health advocate.
This study was designed to examine factors that influence a person's likelihood of hiring a health advocate.
The participants were 889 randomly selected community members who were assigned to read one of six vignettes. Social support and confidence in the health care system were manipulated in the vignettes. Social support was either high or low and overall confidence was high, moderate, or low. The dependent variables were participants' likelihood of hiring a health advocate and the hourly rate participants were willing to pay for a health advocate for six different services.
The results indicated that social support did not affect the likelihood of hiring a health advocate; however, confidence in the health care system did affect the likelihood of hiring a health advocate. Participants who read vignettes, in which the patient was described as having lower overall confidence levels, indicated a greater likelihood of hiring a health advocate than participants who read the vignettes in which the patient was described as having high confidence.
More research is needed to determine other factors that may influence the likelihood of hiring a health advocate and whether hiring a health advocate is a cost-effective way to improve the quality of health care by reducing the number of medical mistakes and improving patient-provider communication.
为应对医疗体系日益复杂化，健康倡导领域应运而生。然而，人们对可能影响个人聘请健康倡导人的因素知之甚少。
本研究旨在探讨影响个人聘请健康倡导人可能性的因素。
参与者为 889 名随机选取的社区成员，他们被分配阅读六个情景案例中的一个。情景案例中对社会支持和对医疗体系的信心进行了操控。社会支持分为高低两种，整体信心分为高、中、低三种。因变量为参与者聘请健康倡导人的可能性，以及为六项不同服务聘请健康倡导人时愿意支付的每小时费用。
结果表明，社会支持并不会影响聘请健康倡导人的可能性，但对医疗体系的信心会影响聘请健康倡导人的可能性。与阅读描述患者信心较高情景案例的参与者相比，阅读描述患者整体信心水平较低情景案例的参与者表示更有可能聘请健康倡导人。
需要进一步研究以确定可能影响聘请健康倡导人可能性的其他因素，以及聘请健康倡导人是否通过减少医疗失误和改善医患沟通来提高医疗质量是否具有成本效益。
