Informational Privacy in the Recovery Room-Patients' Perspective

The challenges of maintaining patient confidentiality in pediatric settings

PURPOSE

The study investigated challenges encountered by healthcare professionals in complying with the duty of confidentiality in a pediatric department.

DESIGN AND METHODS

In this qualitative study, we conducted two focus group interviews with healthcare professionals from two pediatric departments in Denmark using the methodology described by Kvale and Brinkmann.

RESULTS

We identified three challenges related to maintaining confidentiality. 1) Time pressure and physical surroundings in the clinical setting. 2) Communication challenges (where and with whom). 3) Navigation in the clinical setting to uphold privacy. In general, nurses and physicians struggle to maintain patient confidentiality in a setting where sensitive information is shared quickly.

CONCLUSION

Pediatric nurses and physicians experience challenges related to patient confidentiality that impact their clinical practice. These challenges relate to privacy and dignity and communicating with children and their parents.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Building design or renovation of pediatric departments should underpin confidentiality and privacy issues. Our study makes an important and novel contribution to existing knowledge regarding healthcare professionals' experiences in maintaining patient privacy and confidentiality.

Confidentiality breaches in hospital: the experiences of young people and parents

BACKGROUND

Healthcare professionals, including nurses, have a vital role in protecting patient confidentiality. However, evidence shows that breaches of confidentiality are common in hospitals for various reasons, including the ward design and issues related to healthcare staff's professionalism. The situation can be complicated further in paediatric care because of the age range of patients and their associated needs and rights about information sharing, confidentiality and consent.

AIM

To explore the views and experiences of young people admitted to hospital, and their parents and related caregivers, about the effects of confidentiality breaches.

METHOD

A descriptive questionnaire-based survey was conducted in 2018 in two regional hospitals in Denmark over two weeks. A total of 214 surveys were completed by parents and related caregivers (n=173) and by young people (n=41).

FINDINGS

Many parents and young people reported that they had overheard healthcare professionals discussing care, including information about named patients, test results, personal disclosures and various comments or opinions. In many cases these breaches of confidentiality affected patients' overall experience of hospital and led some to withhold important information.

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrates the challenges of preserving confidentiality in children's wards. Situations in which confidentiality breaches were reported appear to have been affected by the physical environment, such as ward design, as well as staff behaviour and attitudes. Therefore, nurses and other healthcare professionals need to enhance their understanding of issues related to confidentiality and pay attention to how and where information about patients is shared.