MODEL OF PRIVACY IN CANCER PATIENTS

Abstract

Some authors affirm that privacy depends on the opportunities offered by the physical environment; the circumstances that favor privacy; and the personal and expectational needs and experiences of the individual. In an attempt to identify the influence of the physical environment of hospital rooms on the perception of privacy, a survey was applied to patients in a public hospital. The sample was made up by 88 female cancer patients aged 19 to 70 years. Three types of rooms were considered: private, semiprivate, and public. A “Hospital Room Privacy Scale” (HRPS) developed especially for this study and made up by 11 questions with ten answer options, ranging fully agree to strongly disagree, was applied. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate three factors: 1. Privacy, 2. Intimacy, and 3. Environmental facility; a model of structural equations with suitable fit levels (p=0.08, CFI=0.93, RMSEA=0.05) was obtained, identifying direct and indirect values for the latent variables (privacy, intimacy, environmental facility, and impact of the environment on patient health status and mood), attributive variables (age, education) and the direct variable (density). The results are discussed in accordance with the theoretical principles of privacy and environmental impact on highly sensitive patients.