Exploring the views of medical staff in transforming a hospital into a health promoting hospital in Iran: a qualitative research

ABSTRACT

Objectives: One of the current concerns of hospitals is how to become a health promoting hospital (HPH). This qualitative research aimed at exploring the views of members of the medical staff in two Iran hospitals about the defined standards to transform the hospitals into a health promoting one.

Methods: The research reported in this paper was a content analysis qualitative study. The license numbered (IR.UMSHA.REC.1395.388) was obtained from the ethics committee of Hamadan Medical Science University. Sampling was carried out through the snowballing method. Also, 55 interviews were conducted with the members of the medical staff. To collect data, the semi-structured interview guide was used based on the standards of HPHs. The framework analysis method was used to analyze the data qualitatively.

Results: From three central questions on the basis of the main study question, nine themes were earned. Policies governing the hospitals were in the direction of converting them to health promoting organizations including the creation of a health promoting work environment, empowering personnel and health promoting corporate culture. Also, suggestions to create a HPH included improving management, paying attention to patients and their satisfaction, as well as increasing effective interpersonal relationships in the hospital.

Conclusion: The findings showed that it can be a key strategy in this field to use staff’s solutions for the existing problems and their opinions on the challenges against establishing the standards for HPHs. People usually accept more comfortable and easy changes in decision-making and implementing processes of which they are involved.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical staff
• interview
• qualitative research
• hospital

Acknowledgments

This article is resulted from a PhD dissertation in health education and promotion at Hamadan University of Medical Sciences in 2016-2017 (Project No: 9509235545). The authors express their gratitude to hospital management and staffs for their cooperation, and Hamadan University of Medical Science for their support.

Author disclosure

This applied study was conducted in two Hamadan specialized hospitals, west of Iran. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests.

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.