Report on the Needs Assessment

Section 2. Results of the Needs Assessment

The sample Individual interviews of 30 to 60 minutes were conducted with 66 individuals, from three different hospital units and two area CLSCs, with the following distribution:

¹The health care workers included nurses, dietitians, social workers, and one pharmacist.

7 focus groups, lasting 45 to 60 minutes, were then conducted with a total of 45 participants. One focus group was held for each of the following groups: Dialysis patients; Dialysis nurses; Oncology Hematology patients; Oncology Hematology caregivers; Oncology Hematology nurses; and health care professionals from the Patient Education Sub-committee of PQIC (Practice and Quality Improvement Council).

¹The health care workers included nurses, dietitians, social workers, and one pharmacist.

Gender
The gender breakdown of participants was as follows:

¹ Of the 10 caregivers, 5 were male (of these, two were husbands and three sons of patients) and 5 female (including four spouses and one patient's daughter).

The data does not reflect our initial intention to interview men and women in relatively equal numbers. This was flagged during the course of the data collection. The hard-to-reach patients identified for us were two-thirds men. This may warrant further investigation. Are there more men than women in this group? Do women mask their difficulties more? Are there gender-based social skills involved in the process of getting health information? We know that a higher proportion of hard-to-reach patients are found among seniors. Among caregivers, four out of five older caregivers are female spouses of male patients. Two-thirds of the health care workers interviewed were nurses, and since women dominate the nursing profession, this explains the gender imbalance in this group.

Language
Of the 35 patients interviewed, 11(31%) identified English as their first language, 6 (17%) identified French and 18 (51%) identified Other.⁶

Age
The average age of the patients interviewed was 63. This reflects the fact that there is a higher proportion of hard-to-reach patients among seniors. It also reflects a high average age for all patients in the Dialysis and Oncology Hematology units. According to hospital lists on a particular date in April, the average age of a sample of 37 Oncology Hematology patients was 61. Support staff and health care workers are, by contrast, relatively young.⁷

FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
The sub-sections below each present a summary of findings followed by analysis. Results from the four groups of informants are always presented in the following order: patients, caregivers, support staff, health care professionals. Sub-section 2.4 presents information on a theme discussed only by patients. Sub-sections 2.5 and 2.6 present results from questions answered only by health care professionals. Sub-sections 2.7 and 2.8 do not follow the same format, but they present additional observations and feedback that deepen the findings.

Detailed findings and percentages of responses to questions can be found in Appendices 5-8.