Personal Philosophy Mind Map
Personal Nursing Philosophy Mind Map: Comfort Theory
Personal Philosophy Mind Map: Comfort Theory
Introduction
The group of related concepts in nursing practice is commonly referred to as Nursing Theories. The standards of nursing practices have greatly evolved through the years with the help of new knowledge drawn from the concepts of several nursing theories. Earlier nursing practices may have appeared effective, but the changing dynamics of care in relation to the continuous evolvement of health problems required a more focused nursing approach. The metaparadigms in nursing encompasses four concepts that drive the development of nursing practices. These concepts define the importance of nursing theories in terms of describing, predicting, and explaining the phenomenon in nursing care delivery. Furthermore, the concepts allow nursing professionals to decide what needs to be known and what needs to be done. Among the important theories in nursing is the Comfort Theory developed by Katherine Colcaba in the 1990s. The discussion will examine comfort theory under the lenses of the four nursing concepts. The comfort theory emphasizes the existence of transcendence, ease, and relief, which when put into practical application can address patient suffering and reduce patient recovery period.
Theory Description
The theory exists in three forms such as ease, relief and transcendence. These forms work relatively with nursing theory concepts such as environmental, sociocultural, psychospiritual, and physical (Kolcaba, 2011). When put into practice, patients are able to experience comfort in the sense that the patient will feel relieved. For example, a patient who just woke up from a major surgery would be experiencing severe pain. To relieve such pain, the nurse will have to administer a pain medication. The simple practice of administering the medication encompasses a great relief for the patient because comfort was addressed in the state of contentment (nursing-theory.org, N.D.).
The Four Concepts of Nursing in Relation to the Comfort Theory
Kolkaba (2011) believes that nursing is about consideration to the optimal functioning of the patient’s physical body. In respect to the concepts of environment, person/client, nursing, and health, the mind map demonstrates the relationship with the theory. The concepts will be explored and examine its relationship to the chosen theory. Furthermore, an analysis of the theory will be provided and its practical application to practice.
Person/Client
Patients are naturally individuals that need immediate health attention. The role of comfort theory in this concept is to involve the sociocultural aspect of care in the healing process. Patients are individuals that need comfort through emotional support to ease the suffering that they are experiencing with their illness. This is when societal relationship, family, and assertion of cultural belief become paramount in the nursing practice. Putting in a more personal touch towards nursing care demonstrates transcendence, which may allow the patient to gain a feeling of rising above the pain (Wilson and Kolcaba, 2004).
Environment
In the aspect of ensuring the patient’s maximum comfort, the environment plays an important role in patient management. The institutional surroundings, which the nurse can manipulate is imperative in creating an environment for the patient to experience comfort (Kolcaba, 2006). The environmental aspects of comfort in nursing care includes, light, sound, color, temperature, background and human experience. For example, a patient who just returned from long hours of laboring needs adequate sleep in order to regain strength. If the room is crowded with well wishers, it may cause too much noise and further stress the patient creating an unease and discomfort for the patient.
Ultimately, the patient requires nursing. It is expected that nurses should intentionally assess the patient’s need for comfort and take necessary measures to achieve the objective by proactively asking the patient if they are feeling any discomfort (Kolcaba et al., 2006). The objective of nursing assessment in ensuring patient comfort is to consistently observe the patient’s condition such as wound healing or if there is a feeling of unease.
Health
Health is the core of the nursing practices, ensuring the patient’s immediate recovery should encompass all the comfort of nurses such as physical comfort, physchospiritual comfort, sociocultural comfort, and organizational culture. Delivering care by employing the principles of comfort theory in nursing practice addresses the patient’s individual need for emotional and spiritual requirement to achieve comfort and optimal health. Implementing appropriate care plan that includes intentional assessment of comfort requirement coincides with reducing the time needed for recovery from illness.
Conclusion
At least three types of intervention were presented herewith that encompasses the concepts of the comfort model. At the same time, the aforementioned principles also coincides wit the concepts of nursing theory as a whole in terms of meeting the health, environment, nursing, and person/client requirements in care. The comfort care model represented in the mind map encompasses actions for intervention that can intentionally uplift the patient’s sufferings by consistently ensuring their comfort. Patient’s does not only require medication alone to survive from illness, appropriate care and intervention such as comfort are also paramount in restoring the normal functioning of the patient’s physical body.
References
Kolcaba, K., Tilton, C., & Drouin, C. (2006). Comfort Theory: A Unifying Framework to Enhance the Practice Environment. Journal of Nursing Administration, 36(11), 538-544. doi:10.1097/00005110-200611000-00010
Kolcaba, K. (2011, February 10). Comfort Theory by Katharine Kolcaba. Retrieved from http://currentnursing.com/nursing_theory/comfort_theory_Kathy_Kolcaba.html
Nursing-theory.org. (n.d.). Kolcaba's Theory of Comfort - Nursing Theory. Retrieved from http://www.nursing-theory.org/theories-and-models/kolcaba-theory-of-comfort.php
Wilson, L., & Kolcaba, K. (2004). Practical application of comfort theory in the perianesthesia setting. Journal of Perianesthesia Nursing, 19(3), 164-173. doi:10.1016/j.jopan.2004.03.006
