1.1 Introduction
Care of the elderly is the fulfillment of the special needs and requirements that are unique to senior citizens. It covers such services as assisted living, adult day care, long term care, nursing homes, hospice care and home care. Elderly care emphasizes the social and personal requirements of senior citizens who need some assistance with daily activities and health care, but who desire to age with dignity. The care of the elderly is multidimensional and these include physical, emotional, spiritual and social care (Ayres, 2008).
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study, Research Questions and Hypothesis and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
A woman's health care seeking behaviour during pregnancy depends a great deal on her beliefs, culture, experience, educational level, financial status, attitude towards pregnancy, as well as her autonomy and decision making power. Adele (2010)suggests issues of importance to include information about pregnancy the woman's family communicated to her as a child and whether the pregnancy was planned or unplanned. Garba, Hellandendu, andAjayi (2011) further explained that long before the advent of modern scientific medicine, most cultures have among their patterns of life, a body of beliefs and practices that centre on the recognition and treatment of complications of pregnancy and conduct of deliveries. Thus, an understanding of appropriate health care seeking behaviour is very important in achieving the desired pregnancy outcome. Negative behaviour is highly implicated in increased morbidity and mortality of mother and baby.
Osubor, Fatusi, and Chiwuzie(2006), suggests Maternal Health Care Seeking Behaviour (MHCSB) to include the number of visits made to antenatal clinic (ANC) by pregnant women and their preference for place of delivery. Jain, Nandan and Misra (2006) defined health seeking behaviour as “a complex outcome of m any factors operating at individual, family and community levels including their biosocial profile, past experiences with health services, availability of alternative health care providers, and the people's perception regarding the efficacy and quality of the services” .
Adele (2010) explains health seeking behaviour to be those activities undertaken by individuals in response to any discomfort felt. He further stated that in the developed countries like United States of America (USA), most women visit ANC early in pregnancy, comply with prenatal directives and are attended to by skilled health care providers when in labour. He also suggests that in the developing countries, especially in the rural sub-Saharan Africa, most women consider pregnancy a natural process and the services of skilled health care providers deemed not necessary. Rastogi (2012) observed low utilization of ANC among rural women in India due to lack of means of transportation, also because the women were often shy when discussing their health problems before a male professional. Rastogi suggests that women who had formal education up to secondary school level sought health care from skilled providers.
Ageing is the accumulation of changes in a person over time (Bowen and Atwood 2004). It involves a multidimensional process of physical, psychological and social change. Some dimensions of aging grow and expand over time, while others decline. Research shows that even in late life, potentials exist for physical, mental and social growth and development (Papalia, Sterns, Feldman, and Camp, 2002). It is not a disease; but phase of life where there is retrograde biological process in growth and development which leads to decreased powers for survival and adjustment. Aging is an important part of all human societies reflecting the biological changes that occur and also reflecting cultural and societal convention.
Therefore, in Jos University Teaching Hospital Primary Health Care (PHC) where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Care of the Elderly Patients among Health Workers.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Investigation reveals the following problems of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Care of the Elderly Patients among Health Workers in Jos University Teaching Hospital research work;
Nurses get in contact with patients on a daily basis, so they are exposed to sharp injuries and many types of infections due to the nature of their occupation. It is important to follow standard precautions to reduce transmission of infections. In Palestine, despite of the availability of protocol for infection control in hospitals, it is applicable in varied degree from hospital to hospital. In addition, after reviewing documents from Palestinian Health Information Centre in MOH, it doesn't have any statistics regarding nurses' knowledge and practice of SP measures and those related to SI among health care workers. In addition, it doesn't have any statistics regarding health care workers who have SI or who acquired infection during work. As an expected outcome, this study will identify the importance of nurses' knowledge about SP measures and those related to SI. Also it will highlight the size of problem of stick injuries among workers during work.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The main aim of the study is to examine the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Care of the Elderly Patients among Health Workers in Jos University Teaching Hospital. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were set out as follows to:
- Examine the level of knowledge of the care of the elderly affects health workers in Jos University Teaching Hospital
- Determine the factor influencing health workers attitude of care towards the elderly
- Ascertain the attitude of health workers towards care of the elderly in Jos University Teaching Hospital
- Investigate health workers practices in the provision of care of the elderly in Jos University Teaching Hospital
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- Does the level of knowledge of the care of the elderly affects health workers in Jos University Teaching Hospital?
- Is there any factor influencing health workers attitude of care towards the elderly?
- What is the attitude of health workers towards care of the elderly in Jos University Teaching Hospital?
- What are the health workers practices in the provision of care of the elderly in Jos University Teaching Hospital?
- What are nurses’ knowledge and attitudes towards the care of elderly?
- What is the perceived effect of staffing ratio on the care of the elderly?
- What are the factors influencing the attitude of nurses in the care of the elderly?
- What are other factors affect on the care of elderly patients?
1.6 Research Hypothesis
In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.
Hypothesis One
- H0: There is no association between years of experience of health workers and their attitude towards care of the elderly in Jos University Teaching Hospital
- H1: There is an association between years of experience of health workers and their attitude towards care of the elderly in Jos University Teaching Hospital
1.7 Significance of Study
The result will help to provide basic information for designing structures and programmes for the care of the elderly in the community. It will also provide evidence based information for health education on graceful ageing. It will serve as a reference material to other researchers in the field of community health practice.
Findings of the study will help in showing the level of knowledge and attitude of the health workers towards the care of the elderly and will help improve the decision making. The result will also help in building up knowledge base on the care of the elderly patients. Improving data base on elderly health nutrition and standard of living which will help for further research, advocacy, policy dialogue and programming.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.8 Scope of Study
The scope of this study is focused on the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Care of the Elderly Patients among Health Workers in Jos University Teaching Hospital.
1.9 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this establishment to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
1.10 Definition of Terms
Knowledge: To have information in one's mind as a result of experience or because you have learned or been told (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 2005).
Attitude: The way one thinks feels or behaves about somebody or something (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 2005).
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