Perceived opportunity for and preference in decision-making of hospitalized men and women

Abstract

Orem developed a nursing theory of self-care and described the concept of self-care agency as the ability for engaging in self-care which evolves through the course of everyday living. Self-care agency is divided into a power and a decision-making component. To test the decision-making or operations component, a sample of 120 short-term, hospitalized patients were grouped equally according to gender and four age categories. The subjects voluntarily completed Roy's Hospitalized Patient Decision-making Questionnaire (HPDQ), which measures patient perceptions of opportunity for (as it is) and preference in (as I prefer) scales in decision-making.

Five hypotheses relating to adult patients who were hospitalized for three to five days were tested. The relevant question of the effect that selected variables such as gender, age, marital status, experience as a patient in this and other hospitals, diagnosis and surgery might have on adult decision-making in the hospital setting was evaluated.

Mean scores from the two scales on the HPDQ of the various groups were analyzed for possible differences among groups with the analysis of variance test (ANOVA). The results showed no significant differences among most groups. However, there was a significant difference observed on both the "as it is" and "as I prefer" decision-making scales, relating to the marital status variable. Subsequently, a Tukey test was used in a post hoc analysis, which indicated that out of the five marital status groups, the significance was between the single and widowed groups. Overall, the score means of all groups were positioned somewhat above the scale median which, according to Roy, indicated that the hospitalized patients were making decisions.