Health promoting hospitals in Lithuania: health professional support for standards

The standards for health promotion (HP) addressing five domains such as (1) management policy, (2) patient assessment, (3) patient information and intervention, (4) promoting a healthy workplace and (5) improving continuity and cooperation have been elaborated and applied within the International Networks of Health Promoting Hospitals (HPH). The awareness of HP activities by health professionals and their opinions as to the applicability of the five HP standards in three randomly selected hospitals of the Lithuanian HPH network was assessed. A questionnaire survey of physicians and nurses (including chiefs of the selected departments as managerial staff) working in three different-sized hospitals was carried out. The overall response rate constituted 74.7%, with 280 physicians and 739 nurses completing the survey. One in four respondents stated that the first, second and fifth standards could be implemented into daily practice whereas one in three respondents held the same belief in respect to the third and fourth standards. Health professionals from the small hospital possessed better knowledge and demonstrated a more positive opinion with respect to the applicability of all five standards compared with the larger hospitals. No difference was observed between the opinions of physicians and nurses concerning the applicability of the first and second HP standards, yet a significantly larger number of nurses, compared with physicians, expressed a positive attitude towards the implementation of the remaining three standards. More physicians and nurses with managerial roles, compared with those not involved in the management of hospitals, reported that all five standards could be integrated into daily practice.