Importance of Optimism in Hospitals

Optimism attempts to explore the concept and its relations with mental health, physical well-being, coping, quality of life and healthy lifestyle and risk perception. Optimistic behavior allows a human being to look at the world with the mirror of positivity. In this outline, hospitals are not only limited to providing treatment but also tend to give hope and faith to the people. In those cases, patients are needed to be treated with positive behavior, and this will create confidence among patients, and they will surely possess a healthy response. The positive and negative expectations are more important to understand the vulnerability of mental infirmities and specifically mood and anxiety ailments and physical conditions in the future (Conversano et al., 2010).

Further, there is evidence to show that optimistic people will impersonate a higher quality of life than those with lower optimism or even pessimistic people. This behavior among the people in the hospital will let them find opportunity in every scenario, instead of seeing it difficult to be treated (Conversano et al., 2010).

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Literature Review

Optimism is a trait found in human personality which has a direct connection with the behavior. From the studies, it has been observed that there are several levels of optimism and there is some kind of relationship between optimism and other traits like depression, anger, coping, etc. Optimism is considered as the personality trait that grows with the development of a child (Puskar et al., 1999). From the research that has been carried out it was observed that the adults who were less optimistic had a high level of depressive symptom. It was observed that optimist usually use strategies that are more of a problem-focused nature.

Today, all organizations, but notably those in health-care management, face unique obstacles and competitive pressures. Increased healthcare expenditure, advancing technology, aging societies with different needs and care requirements and various kinds of sickness have placed increasing demands on hospitals and their employees. The nursing professionals are at the forefront of this challenging and dynamic landscape and must deal with increasing calls for efficiency gains and improved care for the patient, while simultaneously managing stress, fatigue, and burnout on the workplace (Sandra A. Lebsack, 2008).

Adding onto it, positive psychology movement has explained the necessity for positive organizational behavior (POB) (Luthans, 2002). The primary driver of this approach has been a call for research, which demonstrates the effectiveness and applicability of specific psychological strengths in the workplace which can be measured, developed and effectively managed in today's workplace (Sandra A. Lebsack, 2008).

As per the survey, this study did reveal that measured state optimism associated with three critical outcomes for nurses’ performance in the hospital. First, increasing customer satisfaction had the strongest relationship with the nurses’ optimism. Second, measurement of performance results for mission achievement, values, and organizational objectives also includes the features that can relate to optimism such as being cooperative and courteous. Third, years of training and annual pay are positively linked to optimism (Sandra A. Lebsack, 2008).

The outcome of it had a significant correlation between self-reported optimism and performance outcomes by supervisory grade which shows a strong linkage between optimism and work performance, and effective management of hospital human resource (Brotheridge, C. and Lee, R. (2003)). Finally, other direction would be the placement of nurses with significant levels of confidence in areas of the healthcare business that ‘best fit’ their psychological strengths since people with high optimism tend to have a better mood and most likely to be successful (Sandra A. Lebsack, 2008).

Quality Care Services

In order to deal with several job demands, health care institutions are liable to ensure the best quality care service for their patients. Among those quality care services, there are several job demands, like, emotional, cognitive and mental level demands (Costa et al., 2014). Subsequently, to evaluate the impact of quality care related to job demands, this study was conducted. From the result of the research, it was found that there is a direct relation between the qualities of care that takes place in hospitals is very much linked with the job demands. This is the reason that hospitals are focusing on adopting patient-centered systems. This approach will demand high-level consideration of quality of care provided by hospitals.

Infrastructure of Hospital for Motivation

In according to maintain optimism in health care institutions, serious attention is needed to be paid on the several structural problems arising in the institution. It has been observed that doctors have to work in a miserable situation that will profoundly affect their motivation level. It is the basic requirement of the doctors which is needed to be fulfilled otherwise it is observed that doctors are adopting severe measures such as carrying strikes, no work at OPDs and protesting on roads (Jamal, 2017). Through a cross-sectional survey which was conducted it was observed that due to life stress at the professional level, hardiness and optimism is profoundly being affected by house job doctors. The research advised that in order to protect such severe cases of protest and strikes by young doctors it is needed to reconstruct the infrastructure of the hospitals. This will ultimately motivate the doctors and would result in an optimistic approach.

Purpose of Quality Improvement and Impact

Recovery orientation, community integration and Involvement of consumers are being emphasized while analyzing the setting of any hospitals. These factors directly or indirectly impact the behavior of the staff. The study suggests that the structure of health organizations dictate the behavior of their team with the patients (Tsai and Salyers, 2010). The research was conducted to find out the impact of staff’s recovery orientation for the purpose of quality improvement. From the study, it was found that the level of optimism differs in the faculty of two different settings. The staff of community mental health is more optimistic than the staff of state hospitals. The difference was observed because of the difference in serving clientele. Also, it was found that it is not the consumer who should be optimistic but the staff is also required to possess an optimistic approach.

Approaches and Outcomes

Positive Effect of Humor

In order to defend oneself against any hardship, humor is of great value. There is always a positive effect of fun on an individual during the healing process. As per the reports of Lamas (2015), to lower down the level of anxiety among parents and patients, several humorous and cognitive therapies are being conducted. One study tells that there are several comic styles developed by Martin, which could be used for the process of health promotion and health-endangering (Schneider, Voracek & Tran, 2018). Every technique of humor used for different purpose, tend to give a different result. The research was carried out in 2018, to find out the association of 4 different humorous styles with mental health. From the results of that research, it was founded that humor can be used as a therapy to improve mental health.

Optimistic behavior is required to have a positive impact on the health of the patients. But developing positive behavior among patients to make it beneficial is a challenge. In order to find ways of building the environment based on optimism, several types of research are being conducted. Sometimes people go through such health issues which are traumatic. Further, to recover from such incidents, treatment is not enough. Psychological factor like optimism is required so that the belief of having good outcome can be created in patients mind. With the help of six existing studies, research was conducted to find out how the frame and cultural background of participants generate an impact on optimism while they are going through any challenge (Briley, Rudd and Aaker, 2017). The research showed how culture, individual frames and the mental imagery of a patient encourage them to obtain effective decisions regarding health-related concerns.

LOT-R Approach

Optimism is of great importance in several medical and psychological fields as per the findings of numerous studies. It was observed that there is prime importance of optimism for the well-being and morality of both mental and physical health (Glaesmer et al., 2012). In order to find the relationship between optimism and pessimism, administration of the Life Orientation Test, LOT-R was conducted. Through this test, several dimensions and psychometric properties of individuals were being observed. It was analyzed that LOT-R and other norms based on the population is a useful tool for developing optimism and other psychometric properties. Psychiatric nurses can also screen optimism levels using LOT-R and teach coping skills to less optimistic people. As a result, the LOT-R was declared to be a suitable means for the evaluation of chronic optimism and pessimism (Hinz et al., 2017).

Communication and Resolution Programs

Communication and resolution programs (CRP) are necessary to have positive influence behavior in the environment of health institutes effectively. Through CRP, hospitals disclose the events to patients, which are adverse, make investigation regarding those events and explain the scenario to the patients followed by an apology (Mello et al., 2017). The research was conducted in which CAR (communication, apology, and resolution) was implemented and evaluated, to find the qualitative and quantitative impact of this program. As a result, it was seen that strong communication results in building a caring relationship with the patients. Several programs are in place in which CRP is the most effective for secure communication.

Further, CRP implementation was linked to improved rates of new demands and legal defense costs in certain hospitals, but trends in other outcomes were not significantly changed. Neither of the hospitals has experienced worsening liability trends after the implementation of CRP, which implies that there can be no negative financial consequences of transparency, apologies and proactive compensation.

Conclusion

From all the researches, it was observed that optimistic behavior is of great importance in order to develop effective and efficient environment at hospitals. Optimistic is a behavior that can be developed by facilitating doctors and patients both. It is not a one-way approach and needed to be implemented from both sides. The importance of optimistic behavior is something that cannot be denied. In order to meet the requirements of patient’s mental and physical requirements, hospitals are now focusing on development of this approach. Several personality traits are also needed to be considered while designing the strategies that support optimistic approach in the environment of hospital and medical centers.

References

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