Comfort Theory

Comfort Theory

Question1

Katherine Kolcaba is widely known for the development of the comfort theory, and she earned her nursing diploma from St. Luke’s Hospital school of nursing in the year 1965. after graduation, she began her career in the nursing home, especially with the adult population (Wu, & Volker, 2017). She later joined hospital nursing for approximately one year before making a comeback to nursing homes, whereby she became health maintenance and exercise instructor and In charge of the nurse of a dementia patient. She receives RN/MSN in 1987 and obtained a Ph.D. in nursing by 1997 from the case Western Reserve University.as a prolific author her first work or book was published by 1989; however, it was in the form of an article in the journal of advanced nursing referred to as “An analysis of the concept comfort.” She started working on comfort theory in 1991 (Mariano, 2017). Henceforth Katherine has published both as solo, part of the team of writers in multiple books, articles, chapter in books, workshop, and presentation regarding the comfort. Katherine has t participated in numerous research seeking to improve comfort within healthcare (Mariano, 2017). She retired from teaching in 2007, and Katherine has taken a position inboard of Elderlife and also maintains a chapter of parish nursing services as well as a charity based on outreach and help to the older adults. Katherine happens to be the member of Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau and American Nursing Association and the Honor Society of Nursing

Question 2

Comfort Theory

Katherine Kolcaba developed comfort theory, which falls in the midrange of research, nursing practice as well as education the theory can be used in various area of nursing and hospice daily. Katherine describes comfort as the sudden experience of being strengthened by the need of ease, transcendence in for contexts including environment, physical spiritual as well as psychosocial and relief (Mariano, 2017). Katherine elaborates more about comfort in three aspects, including transcendence, ease as well as relief. Relief comfort refers to the specific needs met while ease is the state of contentment a well as calm, and transcendence implies the state in which an individual can raise the pain or even problems. Nurses are known to struggle or strive to provide comfort to their patients. The nursing theory aims at making or improving nursing practices.

Concepts

Humanistic Nursing

Humanistic nursing is characterized by inter-subjective, existential nurturing, and the transactional relationship between the patient and the nurse, nurses, and the community. The hospice arena categorically makes use of humanist nursing theory. The defining characteristics, in this case, include moreness-choice, which indicates how the nurse responds to events to aid people in need (Kolcaba, Tilton, & Drouin, 2016). Call and response is a relationship created where a patient call for help when in need to relieve the pain. Additionally, the inter-subjective transaction has to do with two parties that are a nurse and patient compromise and reach a trusting as well as supporting relationship developed through the interaction between the members’ rapport reliability as well as compassion. Also, uniqueness replicated the feeling of the nurse to assist in understanding themselves better to face vulnerabilities, insecurity as well as fear.

Holistic Care

Having advanced experience and knowledge in beside site care as well as extensive research, she developed a holistic explanation of comfort not only for nurses but the entire healthcare sector. Being a hospice nurse concentrating on holistic care implying healing a whole person is the primary goal of the care plan. The “mind-body-spirit-emotion-environment healing is not attained by the hospice nurse alone (Utley, Kristina Henry, & Smith, 2017). Multiple disciplines have a similar goal of reaching patient comfort. Since the help of medication can reduce not all the physical symptoms, the investigation can require the need for emotional and spiritual needs to be handled before the patient recovers.

Education and communication.

Patient education, as well as communication, are important in the course of minimizing anxiety and improving the patient outcome. Discussion of death and dying can be challenging to a hospice nurse regarding the stage of grief (Kolcaba, Tilton, & Drouin, 2016). Through the help of active listening, a determination is attained when the education and discussion of death, as well as the dying process, is founded on a personal journey.

Kolcaba’s (1994) assumptions are as follows:

Human being tends to poses a holistic response to changes in the environment. More so, comfort happens to be instant and seeks a holistic state of the humans which is relevant to nursing. Moreover, the human being wants to gain basic comfort needs, and this is an active endeavor(Utley, Kristina Henry, & Smith, 2017).

Propositions

Comfort intervention is tailored and then revaluated to handle the unmet needs of people. When the processor intervention is not only practical but provided in a caring way, the significant outcome of comfort is achieved. However, the patient, together with the care provider team has to agree on realistic patient goals (Utley, Kristina Henry, & Smith, 2017). Additionally, the presence of miscommunication between the patient, family, and care provider leads to stress acting as a barrier to patient comfort. Assessment should include the social, spiritual environmental setting, emotional, and physical aspects of the individual. The absence of patent education may reduce the follow-ups of the care plan, and this impacts the recovery and comfort of the patient.

Question 3

Relevance

The comfort theory is relevant to theorist as a professional. The theorist can apply the taxonomic structure of comfort that is a relief, ease as well as transcendence to address the emotional, physical, social, spiritual, and environmental discomfort of the patient.

The theory is relevant to the person, which implies the patient, family, and friends. The goal of the nurse is to treat a person as a whole as such; the person manages their health to the best of their ability. According to Katherine, a person can be anyone, including institutions that require healthcare (Kolcaba, & Fisher, 2017). While taking care of people in hospice care, the nurse care for the whole family because, at times, the patient becomes unresponsive and even comfortable as such not requiring the similar kind of nursing care; therefore, the friends and family will have to support the patient through the dying process. The theory is not only relevant to the client but the entire healthcare sector. According to Kolcaba, optimal health is described by group, community, patient, and family because they are all related and help in achieving holistic care. More so, hospice handles the discipline of the meta paradigm with the team of healthcare comprising of home health aide, social worker, nurse, chaplain, physician, and unique services to support all the needs of the patient.

Nursing comprises of medical as well as technical skills in addition to feeling and empathy. While a nurse can possess specialized skills, it only takes a unique person to care for the other at their lowest or weakest point. While it is not taught, it something that makes up an excellent technical nurse (Kolcaba, & Fisher, 2017). While in the hospice environment, nurses cry with their patient and families and at the same time smile and laugh with them

Research

Florence nightingale, a recognized founder of modern nursing, identifies the importance of comfort in the course of handling the patient. According to Florence, dwelling on the significance of sound observation, it should not be lost sight of observation meant (Kolcaba, & Fisher, 2017). More so, it is not just applied for piling up miscellaneous data of curious fact, but to save lives and improve health and comfort. However, with time the researchers and healthcare fraternity has turned away from comfort and emphasizes on curing the condition regardless of the cost. Comfort, therefore, become the best secondary concern in healthcare organizations. Katherine was able to validate the importance of comfort with the help of research, and many more authors published books and articles stating how comfort should be given priority. Fortunately, over many years now, the theory has opened a new perspective to the nursing sector. Today comfort measures are exercised in different health care settings to make sure that the patient gets the overall quality care.

Future research and discussion focus on the implementation of the education system. While the patient should be taught about comfort, the care provider or nurses should be competent in this area as well. Additionally, the environmental setting for holistic care is being debated on and given priority. The theory also stresses the importance of environmental health. The patient’s environment should be conducive enough to support recovery. It is asserted that during a conducive recovery environment, it minimizes stress and encourages a support system to enhance a better healing process. Hospice care helps lessen stress and anxiety living. Hospice care can include laughter, friendship relaxation as well as massage.

Question 4

Summary

Strengths

The theory has a lot of strength due to the focus on holistic care. While most of the practitioner focuses on the physical wellbeing of the patient, some conditions may not even require medication. Take into perspective the holistic approach to the care plan and patient wellbeing results in the increased patient outcome (Wu & Volker, 2017). Comfort is always outstanding, and in most cases, it is caused by more than one aspect of the body. Focusing on social, spiritual, physical sociocultural discomfort improves the patient outcome. The approach is also simple, where family members are included inpatient care through comforting intervention such as relaxation, laughter meditation, among others, improve overall patient outcome and comfort.

Limitations

The vagueness of the definition of the comfort theory raises an eyebrow. What brings one patient comfort may not apply to the other. While one patient may be motivated by meditation, others may not. Since not all people are naturally a “nurturer,” the concept of comfort should be taught (Kolcaba, & Fisher, 2017). Nurses should be trained in this concept to apply it because it is not inborn.

References

Kolcaba, K. Y., & Fisher, E. M. (2017). A holistic perspective on comfort care as an advance directive. Critical care nursing quarterly, 18(4), 66-76.

Kolcaba, K., Tilton, C., & Drouin, C. (2016). Comfort theory: A unifying framework to enhance the practice environment. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 36(11), 538-544.

Mariano, C. (2017). Holistic nursing. Clinicians’ and Educators’ Desk Reference on the Integrative Health and Medicine Professions, 169.

Utley, R., Kristina Henry, D. N. P., & Smith, L. (2017). Frameworks for advanced nursing practice and research: philosophies, theories, models, and taxonomies. Springer Publishing Company.

Wu, H. L., & Volker, D. L. (2017). Humanistic Nursing Theory: application to hospice and palliative care. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 68(2), 471-479.