To browse Academia. Background: While patient-provider interactions are commonly understood as mutually constructed relationships, the role of patient behaviour, participation in interactions, and characteristics, particularly ideals surrounding notions of 'good' and 'bad' patients, are under-examined. This article examines social representations of 'a good patient' and how these representations affect patient-healthcare provider relationships and antiretroviral treatment ART for people living with HIV.
Methods: Using thematic network analysis, we examined interview and focus group transcripts involving 25 healthcare staff, 48 ART users, and 31 carers of HIV positive children, as well as field notes from over h of ethnographic observation at health centres in rural Zimbabwe.
Results: Characteristics of a good patient include obedience, patience, politeness, listening, enthusiasm for treatment, intelligence, physical cleanliness, honesty, gratitude and lifestyle adaptations taking pills correctly and coming to the clinic when told. As healthcare workers may decide to punish patients who do not live up the 'good patient persona', many patients seek to perform within the confines of the 'good patient persona' to access good care and ensure continued access to ART.
Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up. A good patient? Campbell et al. It is one of the only arenas of the clinic experience that ART patients can influence in their favour.
Conclusion: We conclude that policy makers need to take heed of the social representations that govern patient-nurse relationships and their role in facilitating or undermining ART adherence. The relationships that develop between healthcare providers and patients, and the impact of social representations surrounding notions of good and bad patients, have not yet been examined in the context of ART. BMC Infectious Diseases potentially difficult health centre visits.
