Post Baccalaureate Premedical Program, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT.
Nursing School, Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Kampala, Uganda.
Ann Glob Health. 2016 Sep-Oct;82(5):866-874. doi: 10.1016/j.aogh.2016.06.005.
The severe deficit of health care workers in Uganda necessitates hospitalized patients to be cared for by a relative. These informal caregivers constitute a crucial component of patient care. Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda, is one of the nation's national referral hospitals, receiving very sick patients. Although studies have been conducted on challenges facing informal caregivers in the home setting, no study has addressed the caregiver burden in the hospital setting.
A survey of 100 randomly selected informal caregivers was conducted in Mulago Hospital's internal medicine wards to evaluate informal caregivers' demographics, impact on patient care, and challenges.
Challenges include emotional burdens, lack of sanitation, accommodation, sufficient health workers, finances, and recognition. Recommendations were given to ensure improve informal caregivers' situations.
Despite hardships, informal caregivers recognize the importance of familial presence, thereby setting a new standard for patient care by recreating the comfort of home care in the hospital. Studying the characteristics of these care givers and more fully delineating the sacrifices they make and the challenges they faced provides the basis for a series of recommendations to hospital management aimed both at improved patient care and care of the informal caregiver.
乌干达卫生保健工作者严重短缺，这使得住院患者需要由亲属照顾。这些非专业护理人员是患者护理的重要组成部分。坎帕拉的穆拉戈医院是乌干达的国家转诊医院之一，接收病情非常严重的患者。尽管已经有研究针对家庭环境中非专业护理人员面临的挑战进行了研究，但没有研究涉及医院环境中非专业护理人员的负担。
在穆拉戈医院内科病房对 100 名随机选择的非专业护理人员进行了调查，以评估非专业护理人员的人口统计学特征、对患者护理的影响以及面临的挑战。
挑战包括情绪负担、缺乏卫生设施、住宿、足够的卫生工作者、资金和认可。提出了一些建议，以确保改善非专业护理人员的情况。
尽管存在困难，但非专业护理人员认识到家庭存在的重要性，从而通过在医院重现家庭护理的舒适感，为患者护理树立了新标准。研究这些护理人员的特点，并更全面地描述他们所做出的牺牲和面临的挑战，为向医院管理层提出一系列建议提供了基础，这些建议旨在改善患者护理和非专业护理人员的护理。
