Biomedical subjects

Wen-Chii Tzeng

Publications and source records attributed to Wen-Chii Tzeng.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

[Rebuilding post-suicide interventions from a caring ethics perspective].

Suicide has become a critical mental health problem in Taiwan. Most studies on the issue are related to suicide rates and risk factors, and their relationships with mental illnesses. These findings help health professionals to understand what life might have been like for a suicide victim before the suicide, but not what life is like after a suicide attempt; how to detect the possibility of a subsequent suicide attempt, rather than how to help people who have attempted suicide to construct a good life. The purpose of this article is to encourage nurses to engage in dialogue with suicidal patients by understanding their explanatory models and by self-reflection. This not only enables suicidal patients to move from shame toward taking responsibility for themselves and others, but also enables nurses to rebuild their experiential knowledge.

Ethics, Nursing↗

PubMed2005

Health professionals' perspectives of suicide in Taiwan.

The ethnographic study on which this report is based investigated experiences among patients, their families, friends, colleagues, and health professionals following a suicide attempt. Misunderstanding and ineffective treatment are often based on different explanations of suicide held by patients, their families, and health professionals, even when they share culture and language. In this report we describe how suicide is perceived by psychiatric team members in one regional teaching hospital in northern Taiwan. Twenty-two staff members of the Department of Psychiatry participated in this study. "Making a diagnosis" characterized the psychiatric subculture around the care of suicidal patients. In addition, mental health professionals tended to differentiate the patient's condition through three main avenues: (a) psychotic symptoms versus personality problems, (b) low IQ and high educational level, and (c) high versus low lethality of method. These findings suggest that mental health professionals need to bridge the gap between their knowledge and understanding of suicide and patients' and patients' families' expectations for care and treatment.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

[Sleep hygiene for female nurses].

Sleep is a basic human need. A good night's sleep shapes our physical and mental health. Female nurses experience particularly complex sleep disturbance problems because of after working rotating shifts, as well as because of the effects of the female reproductive hormones. Both issues present a challenge to the understanding of female nurses' sleep. This paper summarizes the existing knowledge about sleep in women, including shift workers in relation to their reproductive status, and introduces practical sleep hygiene concepts and strategies for female nurses.

Female↗

PubMed2004

The cultural context of suicide stigma in Taiwan.

In the ethnographic study on which this article is based, the authors investigate experiences after a suicide attempt from the perspective of patients and their family members in Taiwan. Thirty-four patients and 49 family members or colleagues participated in interviews from the point of patients' hospitalization to their return to the community. The postsuicide stigma suffered by patients and their families was based on such cultural themes as Suicide is bu-hsiao (non-filial piety), Suicide results in an inability to transmigrate the soul, and Suicide is inherited. Patients, family members, and colleagues cope with the stigma through explaining suicide as due to "bad luck" or "a kan-huo (hot energy) problem," or by insisting that it was "not a true suicide." These findings suggest that health professionals can move closer to patients and their families and suggest appropriate health care policy through understanding the patient's and the family's explanation of suicide experiences.

Attitude to Health↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Fań: an idiom of distress among suicidal patients in Taiwan.

The purpose of this study is to describe fań, a culturally constructed expression of emotional and psychological discomfort, from the perspective of 34 suicidal patients in Taipei, Taiwan. An important finding from this ethnographic study is an idiom of emotional distress, fań, which is not expressed as related to a body part like in most previous research on expressions of psychological symptoms in Chinese cultures. This description will help health professionals better understand what fań means to Chinese patients and what methods they use to cope with it.

Cultural Characteristics↗