Nurses play a key role in the care and management of patients across various healthcare settings. Health promotion is a key segment among nursing clinical practice which has been followed and practice for over 5 decades. The concept of health promotion is closely related to the needs of the patient with a focus on faster recovery and improved quality of life. Most patients recover faster when nurses implement health promotional activities that not only help them but also reduces the rate of readmission or casualties arising out of self-care or poor home-based care and management (Edelman, Mandle, & Kudzma 2014).
However, health promotion values among nurses can sometimes cause conflict among patients. In rare cases, patients may often complain of being uncomfortable and refrain from receiving therapy or treatment from the nurse faculty. Based on current evidence and personal experience in the healthcare sector, coping with conflicts would include acceptance, rejection, and innovation. Most patients would have to accept the medical treatment or therapy that they receive in context of trusting their nurse/physician. Most patients accept health promotion activities with no alternative or option. The second option is complete rejection, wherein patients believe that the therapy/treatment no longer helps them both in recovery or improvement in quality of life. Nurses in such cases would have to motivate and encourage nurses on the practicality and logic of providing such services. It is empirical for nurses to train and educate the patient to how, why, and what is being provided to them with a scientific rationale (Edelman, Mandle, & Kudzma 2014). In extreme cases, patients may become rebellious about what is being done. However, in most cases the rebellious behaviour leads to innovation in practice. It forces nurses to develop and implement new concepts, practice methods or strategies that benefit the patient. Understanding the patient’s needs and providing individualized care and management services would help in resolving conflicts between nurses and patients (Edelman, Mandle, & Kudzma 2014).
References
Edelman, C., Mandle, C. L., & Kudzma, E. C. (2014). Health promotion throughout the life
span (8th ed.). Chapter 4 & 5. St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.
