Emancipatory knowladge is the fifth foundation pattern in nursing, which presents the universal longing for liberation. Emancipatory nursing practice can be characterized by seven traits, identified by Joyce Fontana (2004). These traits are context, critique, politics, democratic structure, emancipatory intent, reflexivity and dialectic analysis. All the approaches to nursing care are essential for every nurse, who seeks to identify the forces that prevent the patients from recovering and give well-being for all the families.
I have provided support for one person, who was a hospice patient. He was ill with cancer and could not recuperate. He knew it, but he did not give himself up to despair. I tried to enable him to live each day as fully as possible, to have a pain-free life. From the very outset of our acquaintance, I realized that the man viewed death as a natural process; he was not afraid of his future. The man was in his mid-fifties, and he already had no relatives. After having received the laboratory reports, which confirm his illness, the resolve being taken – the man applied to one nursing home, where we got acquainted. Primarily, the man had no plans to receive the treatment, but later he moved through the precontemplation phase, where he searched for any excuses for such a disease, to the contemplation stage - when he decided to take the medication. Hospice center provides the prerequisite for the patients: they take comfortable furniture, respecting the need for rest and tranquility. All the patients get essential treatment and are provided with any kind of medicine that is required.
People move through some stages of change while modifying behavior. These stages are the heart of the transtheoretical model, which is intended to conceptualize the process of changes. This model tries to combine all other theories for applying them to different populations and behaviors (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983; Prochaska, DiClemente, & Norcross, 1992). In conjunction with TTM it is important to realize that accommodating nursing home by making it more comfortable for the patients so it positively affects their treatment process. According to the TTM`s stages of change, the man in the hospice center should have been unaware of his state problems at first, but I noticed that he accepted his fate at once when he learned his diagnosis. He devoted himself to know more about the illness. The man entered the Determination stage of change - he took some steps toward the behavior change: he stopped smoking and took exercises. He believed that such actions would lead to a healthier life. Later he asked me to help him prevent any possible relapses to earlier stages. This was the maintenance stage of change, as the man sustained and maintained his changes for a while. My patient went through all the stages of changes, but he did not change significantly as a personality. At the termination stage, he had no desire to recur his old behaviors. Till his death he kept on joking and passed a lot of his knowledge to me. Such techniques to help hospice patients justify themselves, as with their help we can make the rest of the patients` lives brighter and happier.
References
Fontana, J. (2004). A Methodology for Critical Science in Nursing. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.
Prochaska, J.O., Butterworth, S., Redding, C.A., Burden, V., Perrin, N., Lea, Michael, Flaherty, Robb M., and Prochaska, J.M. (2008). Initial efficacy of MI, TTM tailoring, and HRI’s in multiple behaviors for employee health promotion. Preventive Medicine.
