Muslim Patients and Carers Satisfaction on the Hospital Hygienic Practices in Meeting Their Spiritual Needs

Saturday, 29 July 2017

Munikumar Ramasamy Venkatasalu, PhD
PAPRSB Institute of Health Sciences, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Bagawan, Brunei Darussalam

Introduction Spiritual needs often associated with diverse rituals relevant to religious affiliation of the individuals, for example Muslims are allowed to perform prayers after with strict personal hygiene. Yet, little is known on how well current hygienic practices would support in meeting spiritual and religious needs of patients with limited mobility during hospitalization.
Aim To explore views of patients with limited mobility and their family carers on the current personal hygienic practices in meeting their religious obligations during their hospitalization.
Design A 19 item self-developed questionnaire survey were administered to adult patients who were undergoing an outpatient rehabilitation programme and their carers in one of the hospitals in Brunei Darussalam, a small Muslim monarchial South East Asian country. Quantitative data were analysed descriptively with R software (version 3.3). Participants’ opinions were analysed using a descriptive qualitative approach.
Result 69% of patients had used soaked cotton or wet wipes to meet their personal hygiene needs.78% of the patients were satisfied with their care of personal hygiene when hospitalized. Qualitative data indicated that this satisfaction had resulted from the use of ‘high quality’ tissue that was able to hold more water when soaked in comparison to normal cotton. 55% of patients did not carry out their religious obligation, while 46% of the patients agree that they faced difficulties in meeting their spiritual needs because of the hygienic care provided did not meet their satisfaction. Patients stated that they preferred the use of sufficient flow water that resembles common cultural practice when meeting their personal hygiene needs.
Conclusion We conclude that current hospital hygienic practices were not effectively meeting patients’ personal hygiene is one of the requirement for them to perform Islamic ritual prayers in meeting their psycho-spiritual needs and wellbeing. Innovative medical equipment needs to be developed to achieve patients’ satisfaction in hygienic practice.