Sociology in Nursing and Healthcare E-Book

Hannah Cooke

Description

This title is directed primarily towards health care professionals outside of the United States. Nursing practice needs to be informed by an understanding of people and the societies in which they live. This introductory text has been designed specifically to discuss those aspects of sociology which are most relevant to nursing and the health care context in which it takes place.

• A user-friendly introduction to a subject which students often find strange and new• Relates sociology to health and nursing to make the subject relevant to clinical practice • Key concepts and chapter summaries aid learning and revision• Case studies help relate theory to practice• Reference lists in each chapter provide the evidence base.• Biographical notes on eminent sociologists help bring the subject to life• Annotated Further Reading enables more in-depth study

Sujets

• Legal Issues
• Ethical
• Medical
• Médecine
• Nursing
• Social

Informations

• Publié par: Bailliere Tindall
• Date de parution: 23 mai 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9780702037443
• Langue: English

Extrait

Table of Contents

Cover image
Front matter
Copyright
Dedication
List of contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Thinking sociologically about families and health
Chapter 3. Thinking sociologically about religion and health
Chapter 4. Work, professionalism and organizational life
Chapter 5. Social class, poverty and health
Chapter 6. Inequalities and health disadvantage
Chapter 7. Healthcare policy and organizational change
Chapter 8. Power and communication in healthcare
Chapter 9. Nursing and nursing professionalism
Chapter 10. Partnerships and care in the community
Chapter 11. Understandings of health, illness, risk and bodies
Chapter 12. Lay understandings of health and risk
Chapter 13. Experiencing ill-health
Chapter 14. Social responses to illness and disability
Chapter 15. Death and dying
Index
Front matter
Sociology in Nursing and Healthcare
For Elsevier:
Commissioning Editor: Ninette Premdas
Development Editor: Sheila Black
Project Manager: Anne Dickie
Senior Designer: Sarah Russell

Sociology in Nursing and Healthcare
Edited by
Hannah Cooke
BSc MSc(Econ) MSc(Nurs) PhD RN DN RNT
Lecturer, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Susan Philpin
BSc(Econ) MPhil PhD RGN
Senior Lecturer, Head of Centre for Primary Care, Public Health and Older People School of Health Science, Swansea University, Swansea, UK

Edinburgh London New York Oxford Philadelphia St Louis Sydney Toronto 2008
Copyright

An imprint of Elsevier Limited
© 2008, Elsevier Limited. All rights reserved.
The right of Hannah Cooke and Susan Philpin to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Publishers. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier's Health Sciences Rights Department, 1600 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 1800, Philadelphia, PA 19103-2899, USA: phone: [phone]; fax: [phone]; or, e-mail: [e-mail] . You may also complete your request on-line via the Elsevier homepage ( http://www.elsevier.com ), by selecting ‘Support and contact’ and then ‘Copyright and Permission’.
ISBN 978-0-443-10155-7
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

Note

Neither the Publisher nor the Editors assume any responsibility for any loss or injury and/or damage to persons or property arising out of or related to any use of the material contained in this book. It is the responsibility of the treating practitioner, relying on independent expertise and knowledge of the patient, to determine the best treatment and method of application for the patient.
The Publisher


Printed in China
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the memory of Dr Dorothy Baker (1930–2007).
List of contributors
Lyn Gardner, BSc MSc RMN PGCEA

Lecturer, School of Health Science, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
Martin Johnson, MSc PhD RN

Professor in Nursing, University of Salford, Salford, UK
Susan Lambert, BSc(Econ) PhD

Head of Centre for Health Economics and Policy Studies, School of Health Science, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
Ronnie Moore, BSc(Soc Anth, Soc Joint Hons) DPhil PGCE

Schools of Public Health and Population Science & Sociology, University College, Dublin, Ireland
Gillian Olumide, BSc(Econ) MA PhD

Lecturer, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Studies, School of Health Science, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
Lindsay Prior, BSc(Soc) BSc(Maths) MA PhD

Professor of Sociology, School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, Queen's University, Belfast, UK
Foreword
Professor Betty Kershaw, DBE FRCN RNT

Emeritus Dean, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Sheffield, Past President of the Royal College of Nursing, UK
2008
It is now 30 years since the teaching of sociology was formally identified as part of the nursing and midwifery pre-registration curriculum. Those curricula also introduced the nursing (or midwifery) process as the means of assessing, planning, implementing and regularly reviewing our patients' nursing care. We were required to consider physiological, psychological and sociological needs in formulating our care plans and the teaching of these subjects, ‘applied’ to nursing, became the norm in schools throughout the UK. Not that they hadn't been taught before, but now we had to demonstrate to General Nursing Council (GNC) Inspectors and students that we were meeting the requirements.
The issues around relating theory to practice are well known, but the application of sociological theory to day-to-day nursing care has never been easy without the use of real examples from practice. Those studying nursing, whether as undergraduates or at a more advanced level, see the value of theory best when they can use that knowledge to empower them to improve patient care. This book does exactly that, using reflection to ensure nurses can incorporate sociological concepts into practice.
I first met sociology as a subject as a Masters student, some 10 years after I had finished pre-registration training. But, although our Sister tutors taught neither sociology nor reflection, they took every opportunity to enhance our understanding of the social construct of the society in which we lived and from where our patients came. We were introduced to the world of anomie by a visit to a local mill. Poverty and the effect it had on the old and young were the lived experience of the back-to-back houses visited with the District Nurse. Assisted by experienced ward sisters, we daily saw the way it aged especially the women who were the mothers and daughters in those communities. Those women also had role conflict, often working, running a home on a low income and caring for grandchildren and an elderly parent. They were experts in addressing the challenges of ‘women's work’ and were beginning to appreciate the conflicts which would arise as first husbands and then sons joined the long-term unemployed. Sometimes, then as now, the family would become reliant on their wages. As the local authority re-housed Manchester slum dwellers into newly built suburbs, we students realized what social isolation was, although we didn't know its name. All we knew was how little family help was available to support rehabilitation, as elderly parents ended up in tower blocks (with a broken lift) and their children in terraced houses 20 miles away. Social engineering destroyed everything that they had, and the excuse was that they would have better housing and indoor sanitation.
I would have valued more insight. I would have then been able to consider how best to address these issues, minimize them and perhaps avoid them becoming real problems. Students today face similar challenges as they strive to support their patients and clients. Unemployment is now a way of life for our least skilled and poorest educated. Generations of families, especially the men, are unable to find regular work and often the work that is available is soul destroying. Try telling a redundant steel worker that a job making computer parts is ‘real work’. Generations of miners' families are trapped within the former pit villages of South Yorkshire and the Welsh valleys, socially isolated (ghettoized?) by a redundancy settlement that reduced their mortgage but gave them un-sellable houses. The role conflict that arises in these communities where two generations of men are in forced dependency on their womenfolk certainly affects their mental and physical health.
The challenges of maintaining and improving health for the poor in society remain a reality. We know the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ continues to widen and most nursing students of today are living that experience as participant observers. Many are in debt, the bursary has failed to keep pace with the cost of living and much of the original bursary support offered in the 1990s to those who had extra responsibilities, has gone. Access to the social security system is limited and many of them live with debt. Does an understanding of sociology enable them to understand this society better? I believe it does, but I also believe that it gives them the will to do something about it. Certainly they are better fitted to understand the hopelessness our poorer patients have when faced with yet another means test for their income support. Imagine too the role confusion experienced when a nursing student works part-time as a healthcare assistant, especially if on the same unit. Or the role conflict if your part-time job is behind a bar with those very different behaviours and cultural norms.
With the separation of families which started after the Second World War, the elderly and infirm have become much more socially isolated than even the re-housing of the 1960s made them. Then, children were only a bus ride away; now they can be re-located across continents. This change in the social structure of society has a real effect on the rehabilitation and integration in the community of our older people, ‘incomers’ and those with disabilities. Stigmatization of those who are different is not new, but when an individual is isolated from both family and fellow countrymen, it can become a serious threat to mind and body. As a young, white, well-educated, resident nursing student, I was unaware of how society functioned to support, or indeed discriminated against, the individual or even a group of people. Such ignorance l