Nursing practice can be complex due to the fact that people in general can be vastly different in their wants, needs, and expectations. However, one thing that has been found to be true amongst people is their desire for comfort. One middle-range theory that is essential in nursing practice today is the theory of comfort. This theory emphasizes the importance of comfort within the health care setting. Comfort increases the overall experience of the patient and their family, it increases their ability to heal and cooperate, and it also positively impacts health care and medical facilities. This research shows how the theory of comfort needs to be implemented across all medical fields, especially nursing, if professionals want to provide the highest quality of care for their patients.
Kolcaba (2001) states that nursing is the process of observing and determining the comfort needs of patients. Assessment may be objective based solely on observation or subjective based on asking the patient whether or not they are comfortable. The nurse is expected to create and execute appropriate nursing interventions as well as evaluate the patient’s comfort after the interventions. The research believes this is crucial in health care settings when first coming in contact with a patient. People are constantly looking for comfort both within and outside of health care. Being in a situation that can be confusing, overwhelming, painful, or scary only increases the necessity for comfort. Drouin, Kolcaba, and Tilton (2006) further support this notion when doing research on examples of poor quality of care of a group of patients. Such examples included patient and family complaints, skin breakdown, medication errors, injuries, and secondary complicatio...
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...ithin health care is essential. Overall, it will have a positive impact on both the medical field and the public it serves.
Works Cited
Drouin, C., Kolcaba, K., Tilton C. (2006). Comfort Theory: A Unifying Framework to Enhance the Practice Environment. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 36 (11), 534-544.
Kolcaba, K. (2001). Evolution of the Mid Range Theory of Comfort for Outcomes Research. Nursing Outlook, 49 (2), 86-92.
Malinowski, A. Stamler, L. (2002). Comfort: Explorations of the Concept in Nursing; Journal of Advanced Nursing, 39 (6), 599.606.
March, A., McCormack D. (2009). Nursing Theory-Directed Healthcare: Modifying Kolcaba’s Comfort Theory as an Institution-Wide Approach. Holistic Nursing Practice, 23 (2), 75- 80.
Wright, A. (2011). Trauma Resuscitations and Patient Perceptions of Care and Comfort. Journal of Trauma Nursing, 18 (4), 231-240.
As a nurse, it is important to address the needs of a patient during care. These needs are unique to each individual and personalizing it, enable the patients to feel truly cared about. It is important to be educated about these needs as the patients and their families look to you as a guide; therefore, education on things w...
Healthcare has now become one of the top social as well as economic problems facing America today. The rising cost of medical and health insurance impacts the livelihood of all Americans in one way or another. The inability to pay for medical care is no longer a problem just affecting the uninsured but now is becoming an increased problem for those who have insurance as well. Health care can now been seen as a current concern. One issue that we face today is the actual amount of healthcare that is affordable. Each year millions of people go without any source of reliable coverage.
Every person’s needs must be recognized, respected, and filled if he or she must attain wholeness. The environment must attuned to that wholeness for healing to occur. Healing must be total or holistic if health must be restored or maintained. And a nurse-patient relationship is the very foundation of nursing (Conway et al 2011; Johnson, 2011). The Theory recognizes a person’s needs above all. It sets up the conducive environment to healing. It addresses and works on the restoration and maintenance of total health rather than only specific parts or aspect of the patient’s body or personality. And these are possible only through a positive healing relationship between the patient and the nurse (Conway et al, Johnson).
Family centred care and comfort care theory both work for the well being of patient. Family centred care focus to work with family while providing care for the sick child. Family and pediatric staff works in collaboration to make care plan that works the best for sick child (Coyne, O'Neill, Murphy, & Costello, 2011). Similarly, comfort care theory focus on child’s physical, psychospiritual, sociocultural, and environmental aspects. “When comfort needs are addressed in one context, total comfort is enhanced in the remaining context” (Kolcaba & Dimarco, 2005, p. 190). When nurses apply comfort care theory, it is to achieve holistic care of sick children by focusing on all aspects (Kolcaba
A diverse range of elements affects patient experiences in relation to the quality of nursing care. However, nurses often have to reconcile systemic biases with their desire to provide nursing care that 's based on patient needs and preferences. Establishing autonomy over their own practice in order to improve patient experiences is considered optimal.
...e crucial change needed in health services delivery, with the aim of transforming the current deteriorated system into a true “health care” system. (ANA, 2010)
Nursing revolves around a commitment to helping others in need, to become the healthiest they can possibly in all aspects of their being. A nurse needs to know how to care, that means to realize what it is that matters to the patient and how to help them get it, and the basis of my philosophy is that caring is the body of nursing, and nursing is not possible without caring. Caring in a professional sense is to prevent future harm, treat those who are ill, a commitment to learning how to provide the best possible care, and to maintain the patients dignity through all aspects of the care that is being provided. Patient care should always have a holistic root, this opens the door for the patient and nurse to interact in a way that can give the nurse insight into that patients values. Patients who are comfortable in their environment heal better and faster, and one of the best ways to make a person feel comfortable in an unfamiliar place is to establish a therapeutic relationship. A therapeutic relationship is one built with trust on both sides, I think for a nurse to be able to see the situation for the patient’s point of view there needs to be a certain amount of openness in the relationship which will not develop without trust. Nursing should always be focused on what is helping the patient in the most ways, a nurse should always
A) Nurses play a special role interacting and building relationships with patients, mediating between patients and doctors, and calming patients amongst a stressful, emotional, and even chaotic atmosphere. When patients hear bad news, nurses are a source of comfort and support with words of encouragement and heart-warming smiles. Genuine compassion, emotional strength, and mental stability are required in order to support and protect a patient’s well being. Furthermore, nurses must primarily acknowledge the patient as an individual rather than a person with an illness and present themselves as a trustworthy companion rather than an obligatory caregiver. Nursing has many attractive qualities because they play various, but crucial, roles outside
Carper identifies four fundamental patterns of knowing that contribute to the structure of nursing knowledge and the promotion of safe, quality patient care, including empirics, esthetics, personal knowledge, and ethics (1978). According to Carper, empirical knowledge is knowledge of the science behind nursing practice (1978). With empirical knowledge, a nurse relies on the scientific facts she has collected throughout her years of education and experience and applies them to patient care in order to provide the best care possible. Knowledge of esthetics, according to Carper, is knowledge of the art of nursing (1978). Esthetic knowledge allows the nurse to rely on her perceptions and intuitions about what a patient really needs to creatively design and implement the types of care that will be the most effective and satisfying for her patient (Carper, 1978). The third way of knowing, personal knowledge, involves knowing, recognizing, and utilizing the role the individual self plays in nursing practice (Carper, 1978). Carper introduces the idea of therapeutic use of self, in which the nurse sees the patient as more than just an object that needs tending to and instead as another human being to form a relationship with (1978). Personal knowledge drives the nurse to think of how she would want to be treated if the roles were reversed, and motivates the nurse to engage the patient in every aspect of their care so they receive quality care that is tailored to their specific needs. The last way of knowing, ethical knowledge, is defined by Carper as encompassing a nurse’s sense of the right versus the wrong thing to do in a given patient situation (1978). A nurse has to rely on her moral intuition to make sure that every judgment call being made on a patient’s care are all ethical and in the best interest of the
Hospice is giving dignity, support and love to end of life patients. Hospice works with the patient’s pain to give the patient comfort, not to hurry death or hasten the dying process, but to relieve symptoms that are sometimes associated with grief and dying. In my experience, I have witness the positive effects associated with comfort care for both patients and love ones. Dying patients grieve for various reasons. Sometimes it is mentally, physically, emotional or psychological and it affects their love ones as well as their level of comfort. Our promise to every patient we take care of is “To provide exceptional care, to guide the patient and their family on their journey, and to respect their choices. Their comfort, needs and wishes come first. They can count on us when and where they need us” (Hospice and Palliative Care, 2013).
Nursing behaviors that improve patient comfort are as simple as positioning and repositioning, knowing patients special comfort habits, and advocating for family presence (Kolcaba & DiMarco, 2005). It is important to use a measurement tool to assess comfort and remember to reassess for a positive outcome or plan a new intervention. Comfort is associated with the pursuit of healthy behavior, increased patient satisfaction, and better cost-benefit ratios (Kolcaba & DiMarco, 2005). Although Watson’s caring model is a broad philosophy that applies to nursing practice in general, nurses utilizing this theory would find Kolcaba’s middle-range comfort theory aligns well within the framework those
Nurses are an equally important part of each client’s life. Nurses provide stable care to each client, answers their questions, gives medications and treatments, and assists with medical procedures. They also have the responsibility to explain to clients and family members what they should and should not do as they go through treatment and recovery. Nurses must quickly respond to patients needs. Every individual nurse has his or her own unique way of caring. There are so many ways to show caring that the possibilities are never ending. Nurse’s support, comfort, and help allow the patients to recover to the best of their ability. Their experiences in dealing with different patients that have unique situations on a daily basis helps the nurses become better caregivers. Therefore, every nurse is capable of demonstrating care in their respective environments.
As nurses frequently interact with the patients, they are the ones exploring evidence-based practice to identify ways to modify the hospital environment and use more nonpharmacological methods to promote sleep to help the body repair itself (Robinson et al., 2005). Florence Nightingale noted patients require proper nutrition, sleep, quiet, and “unnecessary noise harms the patient” (Robinson et al., 2005, p. 263). Nurses have identified many ways to help patients get rest, including relaxation techniques, music, warm blankets, warm drinks, massage, and aromatherapy (Robinson et al., 2005).
This theory “Focuses on the human component of caring and the moment-to-moment encounters between the one who is caring and the one who is being cared for, especially the caring activities by nurses as they interact with others” (Kearney-Nunnery, 2016, p. 49). Healthcare systems have been focusing more on curing than caring. The costs of non-caring are quality, safety and medical errors. Inadequate staffing further distances the relationship between nursing and patients. When the patient feels like an object, they become dissatisfied (Pajnkihar et al., 2017). If management can apply a caring approach to administration, they will see the benefits of nurses spending more time with patients. This restores nursing to promote wholeness and healing. Focusing on a caring approach promotes adequate staffing to facilitate the nurse patient
Health care has always been an interesting topic all over the world. Voltaire once said, “The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.” It may seem like health care that nothing gets accomplished in different health care systems, but ultimately many trying to cures diseases and improve health care systems.