The Significance of Sociology in Nursing Practice
Sociology is a subject that deals with human’s social behavior. It talks about the evolution of societies and communities, driven by communications and interactions with each other. Whereas, nursing is the profession to provide quality healthcare to patient and helping the families during the process (Green & Earle, 2005). Therefore, it is evident that to be effective, the nursing profession relies on a proper knowledge of sociology. This essay will discuss the connections between sociology and nursing practices and its effect on enhancing healthcare.
According to Cooke (1993), sociology in nursing care enhances the ability of nurses to understand the sociological and psychological needs of patients. Holistic care of patient and their families is essential, as it increases the chance of recovery. Sociology in nursing practices not only studies a person in general, but also takes account of his personal life, reaction on neighboring world and conditions of his existence. According to Adams & Tovey (2014), sociology helps the nurses to connect with the patient. Effective connection with patients helps nurses to provide quality healthcare. Applying the knowledge of sociology in nursing practices helps to develop skills, which will make the nurses provide effective care to patients considering different factors that directly affect recovery and care (Green & Earle, 2005). The study of sociology helps them to understand the social values and rituals that influences the treatment procedure. .
There are two types of sociological education in nursing practices, first one is sociology in nursing and other one is sociology of nursing (Green & Earle, 2005). When the sociological analysis is applied on the experience of an individual or healthcare worker while providing healthcare, it is termed as ‘sociology in nursing’. Whereas, sociological issues that affects the healthcare providers as a whole, such as economic status or educational level, is termed as ‘sociology of nursing’. Both these aspects enlightens the nurses with different approaches to treat patients and carry out appropriate diagnosis (Cooke, 1993). Nurses need to be socially aware of a patient’s social existence and social values as sociology provides us the nature of illness, unhealthy behavior, and social causes of disease. The study of sociology helps the nurses to identify the psychosocial problems of patients such as depression, hostility, hopelessness and stress (Adams & Tovey, 2014).
Finally, from the above-mentioned discussion, it can be concluded that sociology is an important factor that helps the nurses to communicate with diverse communities and enables them to provide quality healthcare to their patients. This essay has discussed two forms of sociological studies in nursing, one is sociology in nursing and the other is sociology of nursing. Hence, the effect of sociological education in nursing is beneficial for both patient and the healthcare worker. In this postmodern world, biomedical model fails to consider the psychological, social as well as behavioral features of illness. Whereas, the bio psychological model proposed that illness is not only caused by biological factors but also by the influences of social causes. Therefore, sociological study is an integral part of nursing education nowadays and is effective in enhancing nursing practices.
Types of Sociological Education in Nursing Practice
References
Adams, J., & Tovey, P. (Eds.). (2014). Complementary and alternative medicine in nursing and midwifery: towards a critical social science. Routledge.
Cooke, H. (1993). Why teach sociology?. Nurse Education Today, 13(3), 210-216.
Green, B., & Earle, S. (2005). Why Should Nurses Study Sociology?. Sociology for Nurses, 29.
According to the constitutions of the World Health Organization (WHO), health is a sense of complete physical, mental and communal health. Being healthy is not only demonstrated by a body free from disease or infection but also defines an individual’s right to enjoy highest attainable levels of health. In this process, people cannot be judged depending on their race, caste, and creed, social and economic conditions and religion (World Health Organization, 2017). Whereas, Human Rights on the other hand is a set of rules and norms that protects the rights of every individual on the globe to get basic needs to sustain (Hunt, 2006). Connecting health to human rights indicates looking at all the laws that differentiates people to attain healthy life, be it official law-based work or informal rights work (Ivanov & Oden, 2013). This essay further discusses the relationship between health and human rights.
Achieving the highest possible principles of health needs a set of other criteria, ultimately leading to health of every individual. This includes availability of health services, healthy work conditions, proper housing facilities and nutritious food for all (Hunt, 2006). Therefore, achieving health rights will lead to achieving these goals as well. Human rights related to health includes two main aspects of it, freedom and entitlement. Freedom rights include one’s control over your health and body, sexual and reproduction rights, freedom from non-consensual treatment or experiment and torture. Entitlement includes right to get equal opportunity to achieve highest level of healthcare from any healthcare organization (Dittmer, 2017). Therefore, health and human rights are strongly related and health policies of states have the power to endorse or violate by their way of implementation.
There are three ways to connect health and human rights (Dittmer, 2017). The first way is to evaluate the impact of human right violation on health. Torture or violence against a person will lead to adverse health conditions and hence, a direct connection between health and human rights can be seen. The second way is to evaluate the impact of health policies on human rights. These programs are made for betterment of people. However, states sometimes fail to protect the rights of minorities and women leading to violation of their human rights. The third way is by studying the inter-relationship between the rights and conditions that promote good health. Human right based care can be an approached to let people attain their rights (Ivanov & Oden, 2013). Different interventions that help to reach these objectives include principles of non-discriminations, availability, acceptability, accessibility, quality and accountability. Violation of human rights related to health can be severe to society, as it leads to an unhealthy society. The Human Rights denotes to the basic right of everybody irrespective of who they are, where they live and what they do. Human rights characterize all of the equipment that are important to each human being, such as ability to choose how to lead life with dignity and respect. Whereas quality of healthcare and accountability to those healthcare policies is maintained by the state to let, people attain highest level of quality healthcare.
The Relationship Between Health and Human Rights
Hence, to conclude the essay, it can be said that health and human rights are interrelated to each other. The reason is that health and wellbeing is for all human beings irrespective of race, caste, and creed, social and economic conditions and religion. It is the fundamental right of a human being to be given appropriate care services whenever required. Maintaining all the human rights concerns in the health care sector would help both the private and public organizations to provide better health care services to the care seekers. Availability of sufficient amount of public and private healthcare is another way to let people achieve right based care.
References
Dittmer, J. (2017). The good doctors: the medical committee for human rights and the struggle for social justice in health care. Univ. Press of Mississippi.
Hunt, P. (2006). The human right to the highest attainable standard of health: new opportunities and challenges. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 100(7), p.603-607.
Ivanov, L. L., & Oden, T. L. (2013). Public health nursing, ethics and human rights. Public Health Nursing,30(3), p.231-238.
who.int. (2017). Human rights. World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/gender-equity-rights/understanding/human-rights-definition/en/
Economic inequality is a stage of economy, where the revenue is not distributed among the population evenly. It is widely accepted that income inequality is a risk factor for impulsive mortality and increased sickness. There are some convincing evidences indicating that inferior economic condition would invariably lead to poverty, resulting in people suffering from bad health conditions (Reuss, 2001). Poor-health and poverty goes hand-in-hand. However, the high levels of inequality, negatively affect the health of the affluent as well. Primarily because it reduces social unity leading to stress, insecurity and fear for everyone. Therefore, to create a healthy environment across the state, strong steps need to be taken to protect the rights of poor and low-income people for their health (Leeder, 2003). In this assignment, the effects of economic inequality in achieving better health outcomes has been discussed.
Across the world, wealth equals good health. People with more money and assets can access rich resources and opportunities to attain good health. However, poor community having less economic resources cannot go beyond their barriers to attain those opportunities and suffer from illness (Di Cesare et al., 2013). According to the national health survey of Australia, the lower the Socio-economic Status one person has, higher the chance he will be having health related issues (Abs.gov.au, 2017). Socio Economic Status (SES) is also linked to a wide range of health problems like cardio vascular disease, arthritis, low birth-weight, cancer and diabetes irrespective of income, occupation and education (Leeder, 2003). Lower SES is associated with high mortality rate. Hence, the role of sociology in exploring social issues and social world of patients, health care workers is very crucial.
Human Rights Related to Health
It is very likely that this matter of income inequality and its adverse effects on population health will remain to be applicable for social epidemiology. The main factors affecting inequality in health are difference in living, behavioral factor, and different working conditions. Nutritional habits, obesity, physical conditions, smoking and alcoholic habits are risk factors for diseases like diabetes cancers, and different cardiovascular disorders (Reuss, 2001). Higher bank balance can let people live in a neighborhood which promotes healthy lifestyle compared to low wealthy people who cannot access those benefits and live in a risky condition. Low-income people are exposed to different unhealthy environments and stressors hence experience mental health issues (Di Cesare et al., 2013).
Finally, it can be stated that inequality based on wealth or income effects health of patients widely. It is not possible for person with less income to avail the service of private hospitals with best quality of healthcare, in spite of the fact that he needs those healthcare treatments on priority. Therefore, to redistribute income and capital to confront both poverty and inequality, public support is important. Socio- Economic status is another factor leading to such discrepancies as people with low SES cannot avail quality treatment from professionals leading to higher mortality rates. Due to different life style, people with low SES suffer from mental health issues as they gets exposed to pollutants and stressors more frequently than those with higher SES.
References
Abs.gov.au. (2017). 4364.0.55.001 – National Health Survey: First Results, 2014-15. Abs.gov.au. Retrieved from https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/DetailsPage/4364.0.55.0012014-15?OpenDocument
Di Cesare, M., Khang, Y. H., Asaria, P., Blakely, T., Cowan, M. J., Farzadfar, F., …&Oum, S. (2013). Inequalities in non-communicable diseases and effective responses. The Lancet, 381(9866), 585-597.
Leeder, S. R. (2003). Achieving equity in the Australian healthcare system. Medical Journal of Australia, vol.179issue(9), p.475-479.
Reuss, A. (2001). Cause of death: Inequality. Dollars & Sense, 235, 10-12
Homophobia is an unreasonable fear, hatred, anger, anxiety or violence towards homosexuality, homosexual people or anything that is different from a strict normative sexual approach defining one’s sexual identity (Morgan &Nerison, 1993). It is a part of developing as well as developed countries and the hatred ranges from stopping homosexuals to marry or increasing rate of crimes against them. According to Kosciw et al. (2012), nearly 76 countries have laws against homosexual activities and they even in some cases punish homosexuality with the death penalty. Therefore, from these facts it is evident that they also had to suffer from these hatred and violence while approaching quality healthcare. The essay will discuss the effects of homophobia and heterosexism on healthcare with respect to healthcare providers and patients.
Ways to Connect Health and Human Rights
Heterosexism is a mindset that determines that everyone should be heterosexual and beyond that, everything like homosexual relationships are unnatural, unhealthy, and harmful for the society, leading to prejudice and discrimination against the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community (Irwin, 2007). This discrimination not only effects physical health but also the mental status. A patient of LGBT community cannot address his/her issues to the healthcare provider because they feel that the doctors or nursesmay be homophobic. However, the doctor also cannot treat a patient properly because of the lack of knowledge about patient’s sexual orientation (Kosciw et al., 2012). The health problems of LGBT community are defined as marginal or less important by governments because they affect a small percentage of the population. The LGBT community has to face discrimination and non-welcoming attitude everywhere (Morgan &Nerison, 1993). The community has the right to achieve equal treatment that the heterosexual people are given. Furthermore, the homosexual professional, who faces discrimination at all levels, deserves the normative work environment and equality.
According to International surveys of LGBT community, health consumers reported that almost 70 percent of patients have faced negative attitudes while seeking healthcare and 57 percent of nurses had moderate homophobia while treating their patients (Kosciw et al., 2012). The community also faces problems while making important decision about their healthcare because maximum of them separated from their biological family and the healthcare policies only allows biological relations to make important decision about someone’s healthcare. Health risks associated to thee disparities include higher stress level, low self-esteemed, suicidal tendency, drug addiction and criminal activities as well (Irwin, 2007).The facilities and norms for LGBT community are not much researched and developed.The major outcomes include low confidence, low self-esteemed, depression, anxiety and many more. Furthermore, the facilities and norms for their community are not much researched and developed. Thereby it acts as a serious threat for their healthcare (Irwin, 2007).
Finally, it can be concluded that homophobia and heterosexism are potential threats for healthcare and ultimately affects humanity. The concerns of LGBT community are justified regarding their proper and quality healthcare. The facts presented in the essay clearly demonstrate that healthcare professionals are reluctant to meet their responsibilities to this community. Professionals need to be aware of the code of conduct for nurses to understand the uniqueness of every patient and recognize their duties of providing quality healthcare.
References
Irwin, L. (2007). Homophobia and heterosexism: implications for nursing and nursing practice. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, The, Vol.25 issue (1), p.70.
Kosciw, J. G., Greytak, E. A., Bartkiewicz, M. J., Boesen, M. J., & Palmer, N. A. (2012). The 2011 National School Climate Survey: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth in Our Nation’s Schools. Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). 121 West 27th Street Suite 804, New York, NY 10001.
Morgan, K. S., &Nerison, R. M. (1993). Homosexuality and psychopolitics: An historical overview. psychotherapy-river edge-, Vol.30, p.133-133.
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