IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i8p2857-d348441.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Visiting Policies of Hospice Wards during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Environmental Scan in Taiwan

Author

Listed:
  • Ya-Chuan Hsu

    (Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan)

  • Ya-An Liu

    (Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan)

  • Ming-Hwai Lin

    (Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
    School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, No. 155, Sec. 2, Linong Street, Taipei 112, Taiwan)

  • Hsiao-Wen Lee

    (Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan)

  • Tzeng-Ji Chen

    (Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
    School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, No. 155, Sec. 2, Linong Street, Taipei 112, Taiwan
    Big Data Center, Department of Medical Research, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan)

  • Li-Fang Chou

    (Department of Public Finance, National Chengchi University, Taipei 116, Taiwan)

  • Shinn-Jang Hwang

    (Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
    School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, No. 155, Sec. 2, Linong Street, Taipei 112, Taiwan)

Abstract

During an epidemic, almost all healthcare facilities restrict the visiting of patients to prevent disease transmission. For hospices with terminally ill patients, the trade-off between compassion and infection control becomes a difficult decision. This study aimed to survey the changes in visiting policy for all 76 hospice wards in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The altered visiting policies were assessed by the number of visitors per patient allowed at one time, the daily number of visiting slots, the number of hours open daily, and requisites for hospice ward entry. The differences in visiting policies between hospice wards and ordinary wards were also investigated. Data were collected by reviewing the official website of each hospital and were supplemented by phone calls in cases where no information was posted on the website. One quarter (n = 20) of hospice wards had different visiting policies to those of ordinary wards in the same hospital. Only one hospice ward operated an open policy, and in contrast, nine (11.8%) stopped visits entirely. Among the 67 hospice wards that allowed visiting, at most, two visitors at one time per patient were allowed in 46 (68.6%), one visiting time daily was allowed in 32 (47.8%), one hour of visiting per day was allowed in 29 (43.3%), and checking of identity and travel history was carried out in 12 wards (17.9%). During the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all hospice wards in Taiwan changed their visiting policies, but the degree of restriction varied. Further studies could measure the impacts of visiting policy changes on patients and healthcare professionals.

Suggested Citation

  • Ya-Chuan Hsu & Ya-An Liu & Ming-Hwai Lin & Hsiao-Wen Lee & Tzeng-Ji Chen & Li-Fang Chou & Shinn-Jang Hwang, 2020. "Visiting Policies of Hospice Wards during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Environmental Scan in Taiwan," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-7, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:8:p:2857-:d:348441
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/8/2857/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/8/2857/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy C Reluga, 2010. "Game Theory of Social Distancing in Response to an Epidemic," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(5), pages 1-9, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ceddia, M.G. & Bardsley, N.O. & Goodwin, R. & Holloway, G.J. & Nocella, G. & Stasi, A., 2013. "A complex system perspective on the emergence and spread of infectious diseases: Integrating economic and ecological aspects," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 124-131.
    2. Yunhan Huang & Quanyan Zhu, 2022. "Game-Theoretic Frameworks for Epidemic Spreading and Human Decision-Making: A Review," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 7-48, March.
    3. Carnehl, Christoph & Fukuda, Satoshi & Kos, Nenad, 2023. "Epidemics with behavior," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    4. Gregory Gutin & Tomohiro Hirano & Sung-Ha Hwang & Philip R. Neary & Alexis Akira Toda, 2021. "The effect of social distancing on the reach of an epidemic in social networks," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 16(3), pages 629-647, July.
    5. Mohler, George & Bertozzi, Andrea L. & Carter, Jeremy & Short, Martin B. & Sledge, Daniel & Tita, George E. & Uchida, Craig D. & Brantingham, P. Jeffrey, 2020. "Impact of social distancing during COVID-19 pandemic on crime in Los Angeles and Indianapolis," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    6. Han, Dun & Sun, Mei, 2016. "An evolutionary vaccination game in the modified activity driven network by considering the closeness," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 443(C), pages 49-57.
    7. Caixia Wang & Huijie Li, 2022. "Public Compliance Matters in Evidence-Based Public Health Policy: Evidence from Evaluating Social Distancing in the First Wave of COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-13, March.
    8. Yunhan Huang & Tao Zhang & Quanyan Zhu, 2022. "The Inverse Problem of Linear-Quadratic Differential Games: When is a Control Strategies Profile Nash?," Papers 2207.05303, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2022.
    9. Amaral, Marco A. & Oliveira, Marcelo M. de & Javarone, Marco A., 2021. "An epidemiological model with voluntary quarantine strategies governed by evolutionary game dynamics," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    10. Balazs Pejo & Gergely Biczok, 2020. "Corona Games: Masks, Social Distancing and Mechanism Design," Papers 2006.06674, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2020.
    11. Shams, Bita & Khansari, Mohammad, 2015. "On the impact of epidemic severity on network immunization algorithms," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 83-93.
    12. Qi Guo & Palizhati Muhetaer & Ping Hu, 2023. "Cultural worldviews and support for governmental management of COVID-19," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-16, December.
    13. Ilyass Dahmouni & Elnaz Kanani Kuchesfehani, 2022. "Necessity of Social Distancing in Pandemic Control: A Dynamic Game Theory Approach," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 237-257, March.
    14. Bo Zhang & Zhongjie Li & Lei Jiang, 2021. "The Intentions to Wear Face Masks and the Differences in Preventive Behaviors between Urban and Rural Areas during COVID-19: An Analysis Based on the Technology Acceptance Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-15, September.
    15. Fabrizio Adriani, 2020. "Social distance, speed of containment, and crowding in/out in a network model of contagion," Discussion Papers 2020-10, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    16. Wu, Qingchu & Liu, Huaxiang & Small, Michael, 2013. "Dynamical diversity induced by individual responsive immunization," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(12), pages 2792-2802.
    17. Christoph Carnehl & Satoshi Fukuda & Nenad Kos, 2022. "Time-varying Cost of Distancing: Distancing Fatigue and Lockdowns," Papers 2206.03847, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2023.
    18. Chen, Shi & Bao, Forrest Sheng, 2015. "Linking body size and energetics with predation strategies: A game theoretic modeling framework," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 316(C), pages 81-86.
    19. Davide Torre & Danilo Liuzzi & Rosario Maggistro & Simone Marsiglio, 2022. "Mobility Choices and Strategic Interactions in a Two-Group Macroeconomic–Epidemiological Model," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 110-132, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:8:p:2857-:d:348441. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.