Some reactions of patients to their stay in hospitals.

SINCE 1962 all patients admitted to a large general hospital in Northern Ireland have been invited to write comments about their stay in hospital. For this purpose a blank letter card is enclosed in the hospital handbook which is distributed to all in-patients. Some hundreds of these cards have been returned and studied but although many of the comments were found to be useful, it was thought that a systematic survey carried out in the patients' homes by a trained social worker might give a more complete and reliable picture of the patients' reactions to their stay in hospital. It was also thought that such a study, by gathering information from patients about their opinions on the present structure and amenities of the hospital, might be useful to those concerned with future hospital planning. In recent years increasing attention has been paid to communications within the hospital as an aspect of the patients' well-being and the Ministry of Health has drawn attention to the need of research in this field in the report on "Communication between Doctors, Nurses and Patients" (1963). For this reason an attempt was made to obtain some information on this aspect also.