Hospitalized patients often have a feeling of losing control. Since this is a personal experience, the loss of control is subjective. This loss may actually occur or it may be perceived. When patients come to the hospital, anxiety is related to their condition, their obligations, and the process about to occur (Taylor, 2012). When patients are admitted, the process usually begins with paperwork and intake directed by an assistant who is usually is very task oriented (Taylor, 2012). Next the patient is separated from family and support, taken to a room and asked to change clothes and then prepared for their procedure (Taylor, 2012). All of these activities can be very routine and mundane for the hospital staff, but for the individual patient it can feel like being in prison. The patient is told what to do, what to eat, what to wear, and separated from family and friends. The loss of control appears to be more than a perception. During the hospital stay, one thing with which many patients struggle is the lack of control over their diet and their access to food (Naithani, Whelan, Thomas, Gulliford, & Morgan, 2008). Naithani et al., (2008) reported that most patients are satisfied with the quality of food, but not the quantity or availability. Patients lose control over the dietary habits. The hospital is another “world” that operates on a different time schedule, different eating schedule, and a different hierarchy of decision making than the world in which that average person lives.
In a hospital setting, a health psychologist can work with patients and their families to make the stay feel less regulating. A health psychologist can encourage patients to focus on what they have control over instead of things over which they hav...
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... doctor will want to “win” and will do anything possible to make treatment a success. On the other hand, if doctors can engage members of their team and use their expertise, they can more accurately know what is going on with the patient and help provide a higher quality of care. No one is asking the doctors to give away any power, but sometimes by letting go, more power is gained. Competent health psychologists may help doctors move in this direction.
References
Naithani, S., Whelan, K., Thomas, J., Gulliford, M. C., & Morgan, M. (2008). Hospital inpatients' experiences of access to food: A qualitative interview and observational study. Health Expectations: An International Journal Of Public Participation In Health Care & Health Policy, 11(3), 294-303. doi:10.1111/j.1369-7625.2008.00495.x
Taylor, S. E. (2012). Health psychology. NewYork: McGraw-Hill.
Truth in medicine is a big discussion among many medical professionals about how doctors handle the truth. Truth to a patient can be presented in many ways and different doctors have different ways of handling it. Many often believe that patient’s being fully aware of their health; such as a bad diagnosis, could lead to depression compared to not knowing the diagnosis. In today’s society doctor’s are expected to deliver patient’s the whole truth in order for patients to actively make their own health decisions. Shelly K. Schwartz discusses the truth in her essay, Is It Ever Ok to Lie to Patients?. Schwartz argument is that patients should be told the truth about their health and presented and addressed in a way most comfortable to the patient.
Johnson’s Behavioral System Model is a model of nursing care that supports the development of efficient and effective behavioral functioning in the patient to prevent illness. The patient is recognized as a behavioral system composed of seven behavioral subsystems including affiliative, dependency, ingestive, eliminative, sexual, aggressive, and achievement. The purposeful requirements for these subsystems include protection from noxious influences, provision for a nurturing environment, and stimulation for growth. When any subsystem is imbalanced, it is the nurse’s role to help the patient return to a state of equilibrium.
A nurse is able to achieve this great balance, with the patient and self, by being conscious of the environment that surrounds them and through self awareness. For example, in the scene of an emergency, first and foremost, a nurse must check the environment before started emergent care. Both the patient and nurse must be safe for treatment to be effective. The environment is what surrounds us; our workplace, home, communities, issues we think about, the people we interact with, and the emotions associated with these interactions. The nurse knows that all of these components play an integral role in maintaining stability in a person’s life and health. The nurse assumes care of not just a disease process but of a human being as a whole; a family, a livelihood, a spirit, a person. A nurse knows that in order for holistic care to be effective, the care taker themselves should be at a point of stability as well. A true nurse knows that in order to excel you must know your limits and understand that while your main goal is to help the patient regain their strength, identity, and independence, that goal does not have to be achieved by compromising your own self, identity, and
Molitior Nancy “The 411 on Clinical Psychologists: Here’s the Truth” Your mind your body. 20 Nov 2009. Web. 14 Feb 2014
During my career as a registered nurse I have had the privilege of caring for my patients at the bedside and meeting their needs holistically. Additionally, the safety of my patients is one of the most important aspects of my current role. The experience of advocating for my patients during my nursing career has taught me to place my patient’s health and wellbeing first. The second most important aspect of nursing that I have learned during my career is how to meet my patient’s needs as a whole, not just physically but also emotionally and psychologically applying the holistic approach to each patient. I believe that the patient’s needs
Dietitian meeting the needs if the patients’ needs as ordered from a nutritional point of view.
This affecting patient’s care, satisfaction, cost containment, and reimbursement strategies. Kippist, L., Fitzgerald, A., (2012), article discussing doctors role in hospitals in Australia is applicable to the outpatient psychiatric settings. They see this role as vital in achieving health reforms at the strategic and operational levels. They feel that since physician have power over a shrinking resource base, they are able to argue from an authoritative and, at times, evidence based position about the allotment of resources. They see physicians’ input into the development and prioritization of health service strategies as one of the most important advantages of the doctors’
Although I chose not to pursue a career in health psychology, I find that the fields of psychology that appeals to include families, children, and parents who are struggling to maintain control and are in need of guidance, which include the following:
Complex care of patients provides the nurse with a myriad of decisions to be made-however, it must be remembered that although the
So for the sake of patients and nurses it's crucial to have an understanding of psychology and psychological disorders. Once able to recognize your own mental state, it's important to know how to address it. Psychology, it the study of behavior and the mind. If nurses have a concrete foundation in psychology they’ll be able to address their own issue and their patients more adequately.
A health psychologist has a substantial functions including primary care programs, inpatient medical units, and specialized health care programs such as pain management, rehabilitation, women 's health, oncology, smoking cessation, headache management, and various other aspects of health (APA Division 38, 2015). This is an important subfield of psychology with a vast majority of health psychologist working with federal agencies, colleges and universities. Health psychologists focuses on cognition, feelings, and actions that effect social issues, that are important to human health as a whole (APA Division 38, 2015). Career prospects in this area of psychology have expanded with positions available in many employment areas
Health Psychologists and Neuropsychologists go together in a way. A health psychologist study how health and illness affect a person’s life, they teach people and medical staff about on psychological is...
Those who have experienced with cognitive health issues will be able to recognize how an able body with an irregular mindset can hold their lives back right under the surveillance of the people around them. Having been struggling with major depressive disorder for years, I am able to witness the changes that occur within my life and the effect of the absence of “equilibrium” (Sartorius. 662) that an individual needs in order to conciliate with oneself. Through the journey to recovery, I learn that in order to overcome the problem, one must first learn to acknowledge the issue, and explore the different actions that can be taken to treat it with. In the perspective of someone who is aiming to become a healthcare provider, it is a never ending cycle of learning how to better improve the ways to take care of each patient, and most oftenly, the patient’s emotion has great effects on how their diseases can be treated. It is beneficial to view “the disease with the person who has it” (Sartorius. 663) in order for doctors to progress through the treatment, as this method “improve the practice of medicine” and provides a more “realistic” and “humane” (Sartorius. 663) connection between the two parties. Ultimately, both the caregiver and the receiver gains experience from the improved
... properly interact and communicate well with their clients, they need to be emotionally intelligent, self aware, create a therapeutic relationship and develop reflective practices. All of the above contributes to an individual’s health and so it’s very important that we are able to control our emotions, correct and learn from our mistakes, examine and balance our life and create a therapeutic environment so that our clients feel comfortable, safe and trust us enough to live their life in our hands.
... prone to the illness. The role that psychology has played and continues to play, is that of psychological awareness that only the individual can control the outcome, once the process has taken place. The individual person can then control how to continue the journey to recovery.