'Waiting for' and 'waiting in' public and private hospitals: a qualitative study of patient trust in South Australia.

Background: Waiting times for hospital appointments, treatment and/or surgery have become a major political and health service problem, leading to national maximum waiting times and policies to reduce waiting times. Quantitative studies have documented waiting times for various types of surgery and longer waiting times in public vs private hospitals. However, very little qualitative research has explored patient experiences of waiting, how this compares between public and private hospitals, and the implications for trust in hospitals and healthcare professionals.

Examining the use of metaphors to understand the experience of community treatment orders for patients and mental health workers.

Background: Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) are often complex because of the ethical tensions created by an intervention that aims at promoting the patient's good through an inherently coercive process. There is limited research that examines the complexity of CTOs and how patients on CTOs and workers administering CTOs make sense of their experiences.

Methods: The study involved in-depth interviews with 8 patients on CTOs and 10 community mental health workers in South Australia, to explore how they constructed their experiences of CTOs.

A qualitative study examining the presence and consequences of moral framings in patients' and mental health workers' experiences of community treatment orders.

Background: Mental health recovery involves acknowledging the importance of building the person's capacity for agency. This might be particularly important for patients on community treatment orders (CTOs - which involve enforced treatment for their mental illness), given limited international evidence for their effectiveness and underlying concerns about the use of coercion by workers and systems of care towards this population of people with mental illness.

Methods: This study sought to understand how the meaning of CTOs is constructed and experienced, from the perspective of patients on CTOs and workers directly administering CTOs.

The Lived Experience of Caring for an Australian Military Veteran With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

There is limited literature on the experience of caring for an intimate partner with a mental health condition. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common mental health condition for military veterans; yet, little is known about how partners experience and cope with these caring relationships. Using an interpretive phenomenological approach, we collected data through individual interviews with 20 female partners of male veterans diagnosed with PTSD living in South Australia.

A qualitative study of patient (dis)trust in public and private hospitals: the importance of choice and pragmatic acceptance for trust considerations in South Australia.

Background: This paper explores the nature and reasoning for (dis)trust in Australian public and private hospitals. Patient trust increases uptake of, engagement with and optimal outcomes from healthcare services and is therefore central to health practice, policy and planning.

Methods: A qualitative study in South Australia, including 36 in-depth interviews (18 from public and 18 from private hospitals).

The social determinants of health for people with type 1 diabetes that progress to end-stage renal disease.

Objective: Self-management of type 1 diabetes over a lifetime is complex and challenging even in the best of circumstances, and the social environment can be a powerful determinant of health behaviours and outcomes. The aim of this study was to identify how social determinants of health can impact on the capacity of young people to manage their glycaemic control.

Methods: The findings emerged from a constructivist grounded theory approach through an in-depth examination of life course events that were recounted through qualitative interviews.

Empowerment, patient centred care and self-management.

Background: Patient or person centred care is widely accepted as the philosophy and practice that underpins quality care. An examination of the Australian National Chronic Disease Strategy and literature in the field highlights assumptions about the self-manager as patient and a focus on clinical settings.

Objective And Conclusion: This paper considers patient or person centred care in the light of empowerment as it is understood in the health promotion charters first established in Alma Ata in 1977.

Chronic condition self-management: expectations of responsibility.

Objective: While self-management may be beneficial for many patients it assumes and encourages a particular conception of responsibility and self-management that may not fit with all patients' experience of their chronic conditions and their management. It therefore warrants further examination.

Methods: We examine the concept of self-management and responsibility from a range of standpoints, focusing on the Australian context.