Scripting Patient Life: Care Providers’ Handwriting and Patient Care in Ghana

Abstract

Healthcare providers’ illegible handwriting affects patients’ health and lives. It causes medical errors leading to patient deaths, injuries, and legal actions. Evidence shows that hard-to-read or ambiguous written communication affects person-centered care in Ghanaian hospitals. This paper discusses obscure handwritten communication and its impact on patient care and nurses’ caring practices. Nurses, patients, and caregivers participated in the study conducted in a public hospital in Yendi. A thematic analysis of participant observation and focus group data was undertaken. Manual inductive coding yielded data categories and themes to reveal how doctors’ hard-to-read handwritten communication delays patient care, safety, and participation in the care process. Also, doctors’ hard-to-read handwritten communication hindered nurses’ ability to deliver timely care, affecting their self-esteem, confidence, and therapeutic relationships with patients. Minimizing the consequences of unclear written communication requires healthcare professionals to become conscious of their handwriting. They must take time to write clinical notes and prescriptions legibly to reduce medical errors from poor handwriting. Healthcare administrators must organize handwriting training to improve medical practitioners’ handwriting skills and invest in technological and/or digital tools for record-keeping to minimize illegible handwriting.