title: Privacy and dignity of cancer patients: a qualitative study of patients privacy in UK National Health Service patient care settings.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  I undertook this research to determine the extent to which privacy and dignity of National Health Service (NHS) patients were respected by health practitioners.
  
  
  METHODS
  I used the principles of ethnography to undertake fieldwork observation of 3 wards within a general hospital to interpret the culture of the wards and its impact on the perception and behaviors of patients and staff. I used grounded theory and phenomenology to analyze the perceptions and experiences.
  
  
  RESULTS
  I organized the data into 11 key categories. I adopted the classic works of Goffman as interpretative tools, which led to the formation of a privacy model.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Analysis of the categories established that patients had very little privacy in acute wards of NHS hospitals.
authors.affiliation: University of Surrey, UK. r.woogara@surrey.ac.uk
authors.forename: Jay
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Woogara
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005260:Female; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients; D008297:Male; D018907:Privacy; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D013222:State Medicine; D006113:United Kingdom; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*