Older Adults’ Expectations and Experiences With Health care Professionals in Ghana

Abstract

By the year 2050, over 6 million of Ghana’s population will be people aged 60 years and above. Because of increased health challenges that accompany aging, older Ghanaians have health needs to address communicable and chronic non-communicable diseases. This suggests that now into the future, older adults in Ghana will have increased contact with health care professionals. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore older adults’ expectations and experiences with health care professionals to generate information that will shape health care policy and service delivery. Interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 23 persons aged 60 years and above from the North and South of Ghana. The transcribed data were imported to NVivo software to aid with analysis of the data. An inductive approach ta data analysis was used, drawing from thematic analyses procedures. Three key findings emerged from the study. These include (a) noncompassionate care—health professionals were neglectful, inattentive, discriminatory, and stigmatizing toward participants; (b) disrespectful attitude—professionals showed disrespect by shouting or yelling, making participants feel invisible, or not distinguishing participants from younger patients; and (c) a better way to treat us—participants called for compassion, patience, respect, honesty, and priority attention from health care professionals. The study contributes to literature on older adults’ experiences with health care professionals and suggests to health policy makers and health care professionals to consider older adults’ care expectations to make health care services elder-friendly.