Illness and disgust. Compensation strategies of patients and healthcare professionals

ABSTRACT

In this article, we carry out a review of disgust in healthcare contexts (healthcare staff and patients), a topic not studied enough yet. To this end, we first accomplish a brief presentation of disgust biological and socio-moral elements, which allow us to understand the role of disgust in patients' rejection of their own wounds and self-healing. Disgust can lead patients to refuse self-care treatments after surgery or refuse to carry out diagnostic tests. On the other hand, health professionals are not exempt from feeling disgust because they are in con-tact with factors that cause it, which may conflict with professional ethics and the duty of care. In addition, we present the preliminary results of a pilot study in which we show what causes dis-gust in doctors and nurses and how they deal with it. The results point to compensation strategies that could affect the quality of care. In this sense, it is necessary to highlight the differences between the factors that cause disgust, since on many occasions they are not due to the disease, but to the lack of hygiene on patient's side. In short, due to disgust, the patients could refuse to heal their wounds on their own and due to this same emotion doctors may feel discomfort in at-tending the patients

RESUMEN

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