Access To Healthcare Services

Introduction

The social determinants of health are the complex, overlapping and integrated social and economic systems which are responsible for creating inequalities in health. In respect to these, there are social motivational factors which are able to resolve the inequalities and they are to be discussed in this assignment. Moreover, the role of social support network and the impact of lack of social network on the health conditions of the individuals are also to be explained.

Describing and discussing the role of social motivation factors in relation to health

The social motivational factors are seen to improve the social networks that are able to support people suffering from ill health and minimise social inequality that is negatively affecting people with ill health to help them cope with the disease (Jones et al. 2015). As mentioned by Ronzi et al. (2018), social inclusion is a nature of social motivation factor according to which people in the society shows expression of love, caring and trust along with communicate and accept the people with ill health to live harmoniously with them. It results to avoid social discrimination of people with ill health and it leads them to have successful foundation of accessing optimal health care and resilience. This is because social inclusion promotes effective and inclusive communication between normal people and the individuals with ill health in the society helping the people with ill health get informed about potential healthcare facilities to be availed by them.

The employment of people is another social motivation factor which helps to improve health of the individuals since it makes people become financially stable. This allows the people to have financial ability to spend on getting healthcare services required by them to improve their ill health (Modini et al. 2016). Thus, it means that the people would be able to buy medication, avail expensive healthcare services and buy nutritious food and others to ensure their health remains improved. As mentioned by Groß et al. (2016), unemployment often leads people to face substance abuse as they try to get over the stress of their financial instability. The employment of people, in this case, acts as social motivation for the people to avoid stress regarding their financial ability, in turn, making them avoid getting involved in substance abuse ensuring their better health condition.

The delivery of free health care services to the people living under poverty acts as a social motivation for poor people to improve their health (Lamichhane et al. 2017). This is because the free healthcare services make the poor people feel lack of stress and tension about expenditure to be experienced while availing healthcare services that are out of their economic ability to avail. It leads the poor individuals to accept the healthcare facilities effectively to develop improved outcomes for their health by resolving diseases. The delivery of free health education to the individuals in the society acts as a social motivation for people to develop an understanding regarding the reason of avoiding religious stigma related to certain illness (Mohammed et al. 2016). It helps to improve the health condition of people in society. As mentioned by Turan et al. (2017), negative stigma related to illness leads individuals suffering from it to face social isolation as well as experience hindrances in availing healthcare services to resolve the disease. This is because people suffering from illness as a result of religious stigma cannot inform about their health problems in the society to identify and understand the nature of healthcare services availing for resolving the disease. Thus, health education in this aspect helps to dissolve the stigma making the individuals suffering from ill health feel motivated to come out in the society to inform about their illness for identifying and availing healthcare services required for resolving the disease.

Discussing the role of social support network

Social support network is referred to the friends, family and other people present in the society who in crisis situation or in time of need provide broader focus on the individual to help them gain positive self-image (Rook, 2015). They are able to enhance the quality of life of individuals and the network acts as a buffer against the adverse events in life faced by any individual. As commented by Snapp et al. (2015), the social support network plays the role of emotionally supporting the individuals suffering from ill health in the society. The emotional support is required as it makes the individuals feel being cared, loved, trusted and valued in the society. This leads the individuals suffering from ill health to feel emotionally strong to cope with the adversities and pain related to the disease. As asserted by Perry and Pescosolido (2015), mentally ill people require emotional support from their social network. This is because it makes them feel being included in the society and avoid being lonely or get depressed as result of their illness. The social support networks have the role to provide useful information related to people suffering from ill-health for their better health evaluation by the healthcare practitioners (Perkins et al. 2015).

The social support network has the instrumental role of providing tangible aid and care services to help people cope with their ill health (Feeney and Collins, 2015). This is because all the people suffering from ill health do not have physical ability to take their own care. Thus, in such condition, the social support network acts in an empathetic way to deliver tangible care and aid to the people to help them receive proper healthcare services to have improved health outcome. As stated by Hunter et al. (2015), the social support network plays the role of providing information, suggestions and advice regarding healthcare services to people with ill health. This is required to inform the people suffering from disease to have information and knowledge about the healthcare services they can avail and how as well as from where they can avail for better health condition. As argued by Naslund et al. (2016), mentally ill people are often unable to decide the nature of healthcare they require to receive for their health betterment. In this condition, the social support network takes their active position to make decision regarding healthcare services and intervention in behalf of the mentally-ill people to assure their better health outcome.

Explaining the way lack of support network effect on health

The lack of effective support network makes the individuals suffering from ill health to face social isolation. This, in turn, makes the individuals suffering from diseases feel being neglected and lack of value along with lower self-esteem leading them to experience depression and loneliness. It creates alerted brain functioning which makes the individuals avoid availing healthcare services as they do not find meaning to live in the society resulting to further deteriorate their health condition (Lundgren and McMakin, 2018). As mentioned by Stoddart and Evans (2017), the lack of support network leads individuals suffering from ill health experience lack of assistance for getting proper health aid required to resolve their diseases. This is because without support network the proper information and delivery of healthcare service cannot be reached to the people suffering from diseases. It results to create deteriorated health condition of the individuals as timely services cannot be reached to them at the early stage of the disease to control them. The lack of support network leads individuals with ill health to be unable to cope with stressful situation making them have deteriorated mental condition (Acharya et al. 2017). This is because without support network the ill individuals feel lack of assistance and knowledge regarding the way to cope with stress.

The lack of support network leads to create deteriorated health conditions of the individuals as the healthy lifestyle behaviour cannot be effectively promoted. This is because the support network acts as a mode of delivering health education to individuals suffering from ill health to develop healthy lifestyle for their better health outcome. As per O’Connor et al. (2016), the lack of social support network often leads the healthcare practitioners in case of mentally-ill people to fail to identify the nature of healthcare services to be offered to the patient for their better satisfaction while receiving healthcare. This is because the mentally-ill people are unable to inform about their demands which make it difficult for the health practitioners to face hindrance in assuring proper healthcare through effective decision-making. As commented by Balatsoukas et al. (2015), lack of support network leads individuals with illness to face hindrance to adhere to a certain treatment plan. This is because in this condition the ill individual is unable to decide which treatment plan is optimum for them, in turn, making them have fluctuating intention of continuously changing the treatment plan.

Conclusion

The above discussion informs that employment, free healthcare, social exclusion and others are social motivation factors of health. The social support network has emotional, informative, instrumental and appraisal role to play. The lack of presence of social network leads to make individuals with ill health to face depression, lack of health information, lower self-esteem, failure to adhere to a certain treatment plan and others.

Recommendations

In relation to support network, it is recommended that they are to act empathically with the patients at all times to make them feel valued so that they do not feel depressed due to their deteriorated health condition. In order to take decision regarding healthcare intervention for the mentally-ill patients, it is recommended that the social support networks are to be consulted by the healthcare practitioners so that effective and satisfactory healthcare intervention can be delivered for the patients. Further, the support networks are recommended to be properly informed of the updated healthcare services available for patients so that they can educate and deliver information to the ill individuals for identifying and accessing improved healthcare to have better health outcome.

References

• Acharya, B., Maru, D., Schwarz, R., Citrin, D., Tenpa, J., Hirachan, S., Basnet, M., Thapa, P., Swar, S., Halliday, S. and Kohrt, B., 2017. Partnerships in mental healthcare service delivery in low-resource settings: developing an innovative network in rural Nepal. Globalization and health, 13(1), p.2.
• Balatsoukas, P., Kennedy, C.M., Buchan, I., Powell, J. and Ainsworth, J., 2015. The role of social network technologies in online health promotion: a narrative review of theoretical and empirical factors influencing intervention effectiveness. Journal of medical Internet research, 17(6).pp.90-122.
• Feeney, B.C. and Collins, N.L., 2015. A new look at social support: A theoretical perspective on thriving through relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 19(2), pp.113-147.
• Groß, M., Herr, A., Hower, M., Kuhlmann, A., Mahlich, J. and Stoll, M., 2016. Unemployment, health, and education of HIV-infected males in Germany. International journal of public health, 61(5), pp.593-602.
• Hunter, R.F., McAneney, H., Davis, M., Tully, M.A., Valente, T.W. and Kee, F., 2015. “Hidden” social networks in behavior change interventions. American journal of public health, 105(3), pp.513-516.
• Jones, D.E., Greenberg, M. and Crowley, M., 2015. Early social-emotional functioning and public health: The relationship between kindergarten social competence and future wellness. American journal of public health, 105(11), pp.2283-2290.
• Lamichhane, P., Sharma, A. and Mahal, A., 2017. Impact evaluation of free delivery care on maternal health service utilisation and neonatal health in Nepal. Health policy and planning, 32(10), pp.1427-1436.
• Lundgren, R.E. and McMakin, A.H., 2018. Risk communication: A handbook for communicating environmental, safety, and health risks. UK: John Wiley & Sons.
• Modini, M., Tan, L., Brinchmann, B., Wang, M.J., Killackey, E., Glozier, N., Mykletun, A. and Harvey, S.B., 2016. Supported employment for people with severe mental illness: systematic review and meta-analysis of the international evidence. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 209(1), pp.14-22.
• Mohammed, K., Nolan, M.B., Rajjo, T., Shah, N.D., Prokop, L.J., Varkey, P. and Murad, M.H., 2016. Creating a patient-centered health care delivery system: a systematic review of health care quality from the patient perspective. American Journal of Medical Quality, 31(1), pp.12-21.
• Naslund, J.A., Aschbrenner, K.A., Marsch, L.A. and Bartels, S.J., 2016. The future of mental health care: peer-to-peer support and social media. Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences, 25(2), pp.113-122.
• O’Connor, S., Hanlon, P., O’Donnell, C.A., Garcia, S., Glanville, J. and Mair, F.S., 2016. Understanding factors affecting patient and public engagement and recruitment to digital health interventions: a systematic review of qualitative studies. BMC medical informatics and decision making, 16(1), p.120.
• Perkins, J.M., Subramanian, S.V. and Christakis, N.A., 2015. Social networks and health: a systematic review of sociocentric network studies in low-and middle-income countries. Social science & medicine, 125, pp.60-78.
• Perry, B.L. and Pescosolido, B.A., 2015. Social network activation: the role of health discussion partners in recovery from mental illness. Social Science & Medicine, 125, pp.116-128.
• Ronzi, S., Orton, L., Pope, D., Valtorta, N.K. and Bruce, N.G., 2018. What is the impact on health and wellbeing of interventions that foster respect and social inclusion in community-residing older adults? A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies. Systematic reviews, 7(1), p.26.
• Rook, K.S., 2015. Social networks in later life: Weighing positive and negative effects on health and well-being. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(1), pp.45-51.
• Snapp, S.D., Watson, R.J., Russell, S.T., Diaz, R.M. and Ryan, C., 2015. Social support networks for LGBT young adults: Low cost strategies for positive adjustment. Family Relations, 64(3), pp.420-430.
• Stoddart, G.L. and Evans, R.G., 2017. Producing health, consuming health care. In Why are some people healthy and others not? (pp. 27-64). Routledge. Turan, B., Hatcher, A.M., Weiser, S.D., Johnson, M.O., Rice, W.S. and Turan, J.M., 2017. Framing mechanisms linking HIV-related stigma, adherence to treatment, and health outcomes. American journal of public health, 107(6), pp.863-869.

Take a deeper dive into Academic And Employability Skills with our additional resources.