Retrospective Speculation and Responsibility in Pressure Ulcer Prevention in the United Kingdom's National Health Service.

IF 1.3 3区社会学 Q2 ANTHROPOLOGY

Medical Anthropology Pub Date : 2026-01-01 Epub Date: 2026-06-22 DOI:10.1080/01459740.2025.2601671

Els Roding

引用次数: 0

Abstract

In the UK's National Health Service pressure ulcers are considered mostly avoidable, but they develop in large numbers. This problem is hard to resolve, due to uncertainty around which particular (in)actions caused the ulcer. I argue that hospital staff's practices of navigating this uncertainty are based on "retrospective speculation": the practice of assessing the past to anticipate and intervene on the future. In contrast to dominant narratives that frame pressure ulcers as failure, I argue that "retrospective speculation" provides space for hospital staff to reassess where responsibility for prevention lies in the context of high pressures on the health service.

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英国国家卫生服务中压疮预防的回顾性推测和责任。

在英国的国民健康服务中，压疮被认为是可以避免的，但它们的发病率很高。这个问题很难解决，因为不确定是哪种特定的行为引起了溃疡。我认为，医院工作人员应对这种不确定性的做法是基于“回顾性猜测”：评估过去以预测和干预未来的做法。与将压疮定义为失败的主流叙述相反，我认为，“回顾性推测”为医院工作人员提供了空间，让他们重新评估在医疗服务面临巨大压力的背景下，预防溃疡的责任在哪里。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Medical Anthropology Multiple-

CiteScore

4.10

自引率

4.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Medical Anthropology provides a global forum for scholarly articles on the social patterns of ill-health and disease transmission, and experiences of and knowledge about health, illness and wellbeing. These include the nature, organization and movement of peoples, technologies and treatments, and how inequalities pattern access to these. Articles published in the journal showcase the theoretical sophistication, methodological soundness and ethnographic richness of contemporary medical anthropology. Through the publication of empirical articles and editorials, we encourage our authors and readers to engage critically with the key debates of our time. Medical Anthropology invites manuscripts on a wide range of topics, reflecting the diversity and the expanding interests and concerns of researchers in the field.