Introduction
Healthcare is one of the most essential needs of a human being .Lack of proper healthcare results in an unhealthy population that can be harmful for the growth and development of the population .Nursing practices comprise of theories that are used in the provision of healthcare for the patients .Caring is one of the theories that has been used in the practice of nursing .It involves providing interpersonal nurturing which results in the treatment of the patients .Lack of proper care can lead to the recurrence of a condition or the inability to recover from a particular ailment. (Donahue, 2010)
This research paper focuses on the relationship between theory and practice. It further provides information about the theory of caring, which is one of the theories of nursing.
A theory is a group of concepts that are related in nature, Theories are intended to propose action and provide guidance during the implementation of a practice. A nursing theory is therefore a set of concepts that are related .The concepts provide definitions and assumptions that are developed from nursing disciplines or borrowed concepts that unrelated to the nursing sector (Donahue, 2010). These concepts provide systematic views of phenomena which are designed to describe, forecast and give explanations of a particular scenario. Practice can be described as the putting into effect a particular theory. This involves the implementation of theories that are used in the nursing practices .The theory of caring therefore calls for hands on focus on a patient so as they can feel comfortable.
The nursing theory of caring
Caring is one of the most essential theories of nursing, it involves making an interpersonal connection with a patient by showing concern to the needs of a patient and is central to the principles of nursing .Caring involves the putting in place possibilities of coping with a particular situation .Its main focus is the action of giving and receiving help. Caring was one of the concepts that was introduced by Florence Nightingale who was the pillars of the nursing practice (Donahue ,2010)The theory of care involves the listening to the patients, concentrating on the causes of the disease and offering empathy to the person who is in need of the care. Patients along with their family members are in constant need of care .These needs are met by a nurse whose job is to implement these needs on the patient. (Woods, 2002).
Nursing issues can be described as issues the nurses face in their practice of the nursing theories. One of the nursing issues experienced by nurses is the poor funding and lack of a good healthcare system. Most of the patients do not have a proper healthcare system and thus cannot access proper healthcare from the establishment .This causes a standstill in the nursing practice .I am faced with the dilemma of providing health care to some patients and secluding patients who cannot afford the healthcare .The inability to access proper healthcare by the patients acts as a setback because the it turns back patients who do not qualify for treatment which is a hindrance in the implementation of the nursing theories (Woods, 2002).Overview of key demographic data describing your current practice setting (where located, who is the population)
The population of the patients has increased by 65% and is estimated to increase to 75% in the next five years. Children account for 35% of the patients which is lower compare to the older patients .These patients are prone to acquiring contagious diseases due to their rate of socialization in the schools .Another cause of their illness can be related to lack of proper care by their parents who have not been advised on the proper care to provide for their children. Another age bracket is the youth population who consist of patients that are aged between 17-24.This populations is the healthiest lot in that the patients account for 10% of the population. They do not have particular ailments but seek medication for conditions such as common colds and stress related illnesses.
Most of the patients are aged 25-45; these are the more active lot in the community and are faced with problems that are stress and work related. They account for 25% of the patient population. Another cause of the rise of the number of patients in this group is the procrastination of seeking healthcare which leads to the worsening of the ailments that they may be suffering from. Last but not least is the elderly generation who comprise of patients that are aged (45-85).These patients account for 30% of the patients population and require a more elaborate caring system that suites their conditions .Patients in this age bracket suffer from age related diseases such as dementia ,Alzheimer’s, Arthritis and Memory loss e.t.c. These conditions are unavoidable and can only be controlled .They therefore require constant supervision and exercise so that they can live a healthy life
Overview of your role in this setting
My role in this setting is to assist the patients that need the most care .Patients come in with different types of problems, each individual problem needs to be addressed differently .My role as a nurse is to identify the problem of the patient and provide solutions that can be used to address the key issues that they are facing. Provision of care begins with forming an interpersonal relationship with the patient (Wood, 2002). This involves acquiring all their information that can be used as reference in case of future visits by the patient’s .The next step is to learn about the condition that the patients are being treated for .This assists in determining the type of care to provide for the patient.
Providing care involves helping the patients on how to take their medication. It also looks at the type of the diet the patients should take on which is important for the effectiveness of the medication (Donahue, 2010). I am also tasked with the responsibility of checking on the condition of the patient and monitoring their recovery process. Another role is to ensure that the patient checks out of the hospital fully recovered. This involves giving advice on how to control their situation to avoid future complications. This advice is normally given to members of the family who continue the provision of care in the absence of the nurses.
The Reason why the Caring Theory is a Best fit with Nursing
Numerous nursing conferences and literature are campaigning for a return to the caring approach and humanistic values to the profession of nursing. As a result, a theory based on caring is rapidly emerging. In the past 8 years or so, a lot of studies have been launched to study the concept of giving care to patients, and the elderly ones. A lot of these studies have mainly dealt with the definition and the understanding of this concept and pointing out certain characteristics of care in regards to the relationship between a patient and a nurse. However, recent works have shifted this focus to the one of training and teaching the caring concept, the relationship that occurs between nurse burn- out, and caring, as well as caring economics in nursing schools (Bauer, 1990).
This has been done to ensure that a nursing program is built with a strong base or background in philosophy, which in turn can help in enhancing the success of the outcomes of the program. Using a framework of caring in training nurses, has also been found to be very important in exposing the nursing students to much more than an empirical approach to the profession. A holistic approach that strives to understand individuals as human beings of worth, value, and having wants and needs becomes the main focus of the learning process. Caring is the central and the key focus of nursing. Caring occurs every time a nurse makes contact with a patient (Bauer, 1990).
The nurse enters into the patient’s world so as to understand and know the patient, like a caring individual. The theory of caring makes a significant difference, to the feeling of well being in the patient. Caring can take place in the absence of curing but curing cannot take place unless the patient receives the proper care. It is with that belief that nurses and other health providers care for patients with the expectations that the caring will contribute significantly to their well being (Bauer, 1990).
With today’s fast pace health care however, caring has become more difficult and under threat of extinction. Just as well, the much legality present in any aspect of health care has furthered the notion and view that caring for patients in nursing is missing. In addition to this, technology has also affected the aspect of caring because of the less and less time physicians are spending with their patients; although it has greatly eased some difficulties faced in Medicare. The main issue that has affected caring greatly is the shortage in nursing and the decrease in the faculty numbers for schools specializing in nursing (Szigeti, 2000). This has strained the number of available nurses as compared the high number of patients. This has caused many nurses to concentrate more on treatment and less on caring for the patient. Many elderly clients have indicated that caring in nursing is not the same as it used to 25to 30 years ago; they have expressed concerns that caring is diminishing and that it is largely missing in some nurses. With such changes and difficulties therefore, the nursing professionals must ensure that they keep on holding the compassion and caring along side with their skills and knowledge to ensure that patients feel cared for and taken care of (Daniels, 2004).
With these issues facing nursing today, caring becomes the best fit because it is a science that involves a human science orientation, a humanitarian, processes in human caring, experiences and phenomena. A perspective in caring science should be grounded in ontology of being in relation, that is relational and a world wide view of connectedness and unity of all individuals. Transpersonal caring also agrees with the presence and the need for connectedness and unity in life that occur in concentric movements of caring from individual to community, others, world and the universe at large (Daniels, 2004).
The science and theory of caring in nursing best fits the profession because its inquiry includes philosophical, ontological, ethical, studies and historical inquiries. In addition to this, the theory also includes a number of approaches to inquiry that are epistemological including empirical and clinical, but it still remains open to entering into inquiry areas that find out other means of knowing like poetic, aesthetic, narrative, intuitive, personal, evolving consciousness, kinesthetic, intentionality, knowing in moral ethics, as well as metaphysical- spiritual knowing. Caring is also an evolving field based on the discipline of evolving nursing and nursing science; it has however also extended to other disciplines like education, and philosophy, which are also other critical entities of nursing (Daniels, 2004).
As a result, caring has become an interdisciplinary study field that is indispensable to nursing. Its importance is reflected in its relevance to all education, health, and human science professions and fields. As such, it is evident that the theory of caring can be used to address many caring issues and challenges facing nursing today as it is such a wide field of study. It imposters indispensable caring behaviors in nurses and other health care professionals such as attentive listening, honesty, comforting, responsibility, patience, touch, respect, sensitivity, use of the patient’s name, and providing the necessary information for the patient to enable them to make informed decisions (Boykin & Schoenhofer, 1990).
Promotion of a framework of caring for faculty and nursing modeling of caring attitudes and behaviors has a potential to impact greatly the recruitment of students. In our society that has become so depended on technology therefore, it is important to put great emphasis to relationships that occur between individuals such as between nurses and their patients or clients. Just as well reaffirming the nursing nature that is caring to the society and promoting caring behaviors actively among nursing can go a long way in making the profession of nursing more desirable, appealing, and attractive as a career; something that can solve the issue of nursing shortage currently being faced (Szigeti, 2000).
Relationship between Caring and the Metaparadigms of Nursing
The four metaparadigms of nursing include person, health, environment, and nursing; they are chiefly regarded as the four most significant aspects in nursing (Montgomery & Webster, 1993). Caring relates with these four metaparadigms because it makes up one of the most essential attributes in nursing. It also relates to these paradigms because it is the essence of health care that improves or increases the well being and the health of the patient and it also promotes the facilitation of health. Caring is also experienced by the client or the patient as the nurturing, concern, and a sense or feeling that the health care provider remembers and recognizes the patient as an individual. The paradigm of person refers to the individual who is sick and not as the patient; the referral to the sick person as a person (Montgomery & Webster, 1993). This also encompasses the social groups and the families that have also come to refer to the individual as so. The person is autonomous and unique, and a nurse should treat them that way. A real person therefore, should not be treated as a clinical or professional object.
Caring , relates to this paradigm in that it campaigns for the caring and understanding of people as individuals, by remembering patients by their names and attending to their needs as they are people with varying needs.
The paradigm of health, like all the other meta- concepts, is very general. It therefore, does not take health or deal with it in a manner that is strictly clinical (Montgomery & Webster, 1993). It views nurses as professionals in medicine, who are not just mere adjuncts to the doctors. However, it describes and explains health in terms that are abstract; in that health is contextual and negotiable, that health is not a concept that is absolute, but a concept that occurs in the health issues context. For example, a person suffering from cancer or any other terminal disease considers a day to be healthy and good if they do not suffer greatly or die. But in the real world, in the context of a perfectly healthy individual, this is not the appropriate definition of health. These terms are therefore negotiable because of the suffering context that comes with cancer (Montgomery & Webster, 1993).
The theory of caring relates with this paradigm in that caring is directed and focused to a death that is free of pain and with dignity. Caring also centers and revolves around the patient, preserving and providing for humanity and dignity. Caring relates well with health because it is a commitment nurses make to alleviate the vulnerabilities the patient might be experiencing through the provision of concern and attention for each life (Daniels, 2004). The paradigm of health relates to the number eight carative factor of the ten provided by Jean Watson, which states supportive, physical, protective, societal, corrective, and spiritual environment for the patient, and one that the nurse hopes to attain with a patient who is dying (Watson, 2002).
The environmental paradigm in nursing is the one that explains nursing and health care in full context. It affects greatly the totality of all the aspects that affect the patient’s recovery. The mental state, home life, addictions, chances of relapse, physical pain, of the patient as well as rewarding work are some of the aspects found in this paradigm, all of which greatly affect the desire of the patient to recover as well as the recovery it self (Montgomery & Webster, 1993). Caring relates to this paradigm as it emits a powerful energy that improves and increases healing and recovery of the patient. This is because the nurse produces a higher frequency of energy that the patient that converges in the process of conscious healing of the patient. Also a professional nurse possesses the nursing knowledge, skills and caring consciousness that promote healing. The nursing paradigm integrates with caring to bring about recovery and healing to patients (Montgomery & Webster, 1993). Nursing is sometimes translated to caring to show the close relationship nursing has with caring. This paradigm is one of compassion and caring; that which enhances the need for nurses to ease and help suffering.
Recruit more nurses
The establishment has received a number of complaints that are call for the increase of the number of nurses in the facility. I would ensure that the facilities increase their nurses so that all the patients can receive adequate care. The increase in the nurses would also improve the efficiency of the performance of the nurses in that all the patients would receive special treatment .The facility is un able to perform well when nurses are overworked .This makes the nurses provide mediocre services that are not in line with the standards that are required to provide good healthcare for the patients.
Training
For nurses to perform their services to their maximum capabilities, they need to be well trained in their area of study (Judd, 2009). I would streamline the policies that are used in the nursing curriculum. These policies are a reflection on the performance of the medical establishment and are thus important in the implementation of proper training services for the nurses. Training involves the educating the nurses on the current forms of health care provision. Healthcare methods keep on changing and it is up to the establishment to keep up with the current trends .Taking part in research is therefore essential in the improvements of the providing care for patients.
Making the cost more affordable for the patients
The cost of healthcare in general has become unaffordable over the years (Judd, 2009).I would come up with a program that would cater for low income earners that cannot afford the regular cost of healthcare. This would involve offering the patients subsidized rates on the consultation fees, medication and the caring services in general. Subsidized rates would make all the patients that were unable to pay for proper healthcare receive one.
Reflect on and describe your greatest learning from completing this assignment
During the writing of my research paper I have learnt allot about the importance of the theory of caring and the importance of putting the theory into effect .My greatest learning experience involved my education of how much the provision of care was important to the nursing practices. Caring is important for the proper recovery of a patient. Without implementing the right method of care for a patient, the whole treatment process cannot be completed. This has made me have a lot of respect for the nursing practice which provides care for patients .The nurses have made the patients a priority in their life .Provision of care is not simple, it requires an enormous amount of sacrifice by the care giver so that the patient can feel comfortable .The practice of nursing is therefore a calling and cannot be compared to other areas of study (Judd, 2009).
Conclusion
The theory of caring is one of the most important theories in nursing .The term nursing alone describes the need for provision of care to patients. Being able to provide care for the patients of this population is essential. All the patients who visit this practice need a lot of care which is essential for their quick recovery. Practicing the theory of care enables one to identify with the patients and thus provide empathy to the patients who later reciprocate by putting their trust in me as a care giver. The theories of nursing enable the nurses to provide adequate care to the patient’s .Most of these theories are not important if they are not implemented well by the nurses.
References
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