Notes from Learning guide

Question 1

Define ADL

Answer 1

Activities of daily living - term used in healthcare to refer to daily self car activities. Used routinely as a measurement of functional status of a person, particularly in regards to disabilities and the elderly

Question 2

Define birth rate

Answer 2

Summary rate based on number of live births in a population over a given period of time, usually a year

Question 3

Define clinical audit

Answer 3

A quality improvement process that seeks to improve patient care and outcomes though the systematic review of care against explicit criteria and the implementation of change

Question 4

Define clinical effectiveness

Answer 4

Degree to which the organisation is ensuring the “best practice”, based on evidence of effectiveness where such evidence exists, is used

Question 5

Define coping

Answer 5

The process of managing stress

Question 6

Define critical appraisal

Answer 6

Process of carefully and systematically examining research to judge its trustworthiness, and its value and relevance in a particular context

Question 7

Define culture (Tyler and Keesing)

Answer 7

“Culture is a complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, laws, customs etc” Tyler, 1874.

“Systems of shared ideas, systems of concepts and rules and meanings that underlie and are expressed in the ways that human beings live” Keesing, 1981

Question 8

Define disease and how it differs from an illness

Answer 8

A physiological or psychological dysfunction. As distinct from illness, a disease is essentially the same biological process in each individual who suffers it, whereas an illness will be influences by other features (e.g. age, personality, personal circumstances and previous experience)

Question 9

Define disease prevention

Answer 9

Refers to measures taken to prevent disease or injuries rather than curing or treating their symptoms

Question 10

Define ethnicity

Answer 10

Refers to cultural practices and outlooks that characterise and distinguish a certain group of people. Characteristics identifying an ethnic group may include a common language, common autos and beliefs and traditions. This term is preferred over race

Question 11

Define gender

Answer 11

Refer to the social implication of being male or female, including differences int he way women and men think, behave or interact socially in society. Gender patterns vary both within and between societies.

Question 12

Define hazard

Answer 12

Is the potential to cause harm

Question 13

Define risk

Answer 13

The measure of likelihood of causing harm

Question 14

Define health promotion

Answer 14

The process of enabling people to increase control over, and improve their health. Applied to a wide range of approaches to improving health of people, communities and populations

Question 15

Define illness

Answer 15

A persons experience or subjective notion of being ill. This is not to be confused with disease

Question 16

Define incidence

Answer 16

Number of new cases of a disease in a population in a defined period of time. Incidence tells is something about trends in causation and the aetiology of disease

Question 17

Define infant mortality rate

Answer 17

A measure of the rate of deaths (usually in one year) of children less than 1 year old with the number of live births in the same year as the denominator. This is often cited as a useful indicator of the level of health in a community

Question 18

Define mortality rate (all cause and disease specific)

Answer 18

All-cause mortality: a measure of the number of deaths form any cause in a particular population, scaled to the size that population usually expressed per 1000 or 100,000 persons per year - may be referred to as “crude death rate”

Disease-specific mortality: the number of deaths due to a given disease/cause per time, usually expressed per 1000 or 100,000 persons per year

Question 19

Define and compare mortality and morbidity

Answer 19

Mortality - how many have died within a population

Morbidity - how many people are ill within a population

Question 20

Define quality of life

Answer 20

The general well-being of an individual or society. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a multi-dimensional concept that includes domains related to physical, mental, emotional and social functioning, and focuses on the impact health status has on quality of life

Question 21

Define QUALY

Answer 21

Measure of disease burden, including both the quality and the quantity of life lived. It is used in assessing the value for money of an intervention. The QALY is based on the number of years of life that would be added by the intervention

Question 22

Define race

Answer 22

A group of people linked by biological or genetic factors. This term should not be used to describe different social groups (ethnicity)

Question 23

Define self-efficacy

Answer 23

A persons belief in their own ability to succeed in, or manage, a particular situation

Question 24

Define sex

Answer 24

The biological characteristics of men or women

Question 25

Define social class

Answer 25

Form of social stratification (layering of society). The most common occupational classification currently in use, and used in Britain since 1911 Census, has six social classes:
I - professionals
II - managerial and technical
IIIa - Skilled, non-manual
IIIb - Skilled, manual 
IV - partly skilled manual
V - unskilled

Question 26

Define stress

Answer 26

The body response to the demands placed upon it

Question 27

Define the sick role

Answer 27

The traditional temporary, medically sanctioned role of being sick