Patients’ coping and adaptation can be
affected by the attitudes and actions of
health care workers, too. Andreucci et al.,
for example, state that “patients may find it
more difficult to adapt when clinicians
devote their energies to the technical
aspects of care at the expense of personal
interaction.”27 Personal interaction with
patients is easy to achieve in my current
area of work on a dialysis unit, as there is a
caseload of 72 patients seen three times a
week for four hours at a time for their
hemodialysis treatment. On the wards,
however, it can be much more difficult to
build a relationship, as other nursing tasks
are often assigned priority, and the general
pressures of the workload, frequent poor
staffing levels, and time can be against the
staff. However, it is while on the ward as
inpatients that patients require the most
psychological care, as they will be worried
about the cause of their hospitalization and
its treatment and consequences.