Informational Privacy in the Recovery Room—Patients' Perspective

Abstract

<div><div>Purpose: To describe patients' perceptions of informational privacy and factors promoting it in the recovery room.<br />Design: A descriptive semistructured qualitative interview study.<br /><br />Methods: The study was conducted in 2013, and the data were analyzed with inductive content analysis. Adult surgical recovery room patients (n = 17) were recruited with purposive sampling at the Department of Ear, Nose and Throat diseases in a university hospital in Finland.<br /><br />Findings: Informational privacy was described as control of patients' health information maintained by the health care professionals and the patients. Informational privacy was especially important in relation to other patients. Health care professionals and patients' attitude, behavior, and knowledge of informational privacy, barriers of hearing and seeing, societal rules, and the electronic patient data system promoted informational privacy.<br /><br />Conclusions: Informational privacy in relation to other patients could be improved in the recovery room, for example, by developing patient health information transmission and architectural solutions.<br /></div></div>