Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
any time it is surely not too contentious to argue that these young
people had been exposed to both their parents and grandparents
beliefs throughout their young lives. The catchment area for
Letterkenny Institute of Technology is, for the most part, County
Donegal, which is still a largely rural community, and to speak of
the demise of the Catholic Church in this area is surely somewhat
premature.
Given the age of the sample utilised for this research perhaps it is
only natural that physical health, in the sense of being able to ‘do’
things, would be of great significance to them. This sentiment can
be clearly seen in Table 2 where being able to do my physical work
found support with eight in ten of the sample. A further three
quarters of the sample agreed with the statement ‘being able to go
about my work’ was central to their description of health beliefs.
Further significant support was given to statements that involved
personal care like showering, to dress oneself and to be able to walk
attracting agreement of between one half and two thirds of the
sample.
One female respondent (general student) said that ‘when you can’t
do what you want to do every day … what’s a normal task every
day, when you have physical problems that stop you from doing
what you want … when you have to be dependent on other people
and that’s when it impinges on your life generally that’s when you’re
not healthy.’ However this view was challenged by an intellectual
disability nursing student ‘well, physical aspects is that clients with
intellectual disability do have physical disability and have difficulty
getting dressed, if they have cerebral palsy then they won’t be able
to do that and they’ll need someone else to help them. But while
they are very dependent they can be healthy and it depends on the
individual’.
What is evident here is perhaps the different viewpoints of the
different disciplines of nursing taking part in this research (general,
mental health & intellectual disability) with their often very different
approaches to the question of what health is. For general nurses
perhaps the emphasis is on moving people out of the ward which is
possibly also, although to a lesser extent, the aim of mental health
nursing. While for intellectual disability nursing the emphasis might
probably be more on quality of life approach given the fact that
many of their clients or patients have no realistic opportunity of
exercising a ‘normal’ range of physical behaviours.
The social aspects of health were clearly of some importance to the
respondents. In particular the role of the family, having a social
support network and being able to socialise with friends were
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