Holistic Nursing: Incorporating The Biopsychosocial Model, Jean Watson’s Theory Of Caring, And Essay.

Holistic Care Approach in Nursing

Question:

Discuss about the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology System.

One of the present trends of healthcare is providing patients with a holistic approach of caring that incorporate biopsychosocial model of care unlike the biological model of care. The biological model of care influences the healthcare professionals to look only on the biological determinants of health like the microorganisms or the physiological issue that is creating the issue in the patients (Morton et al., 2017). This theory has been criticized by modern day researchers as this form of care fails to provide a holistic approach to the treatment of patients that is of utmost importance in the recovery of care of patients. Therefore, the present day healthcare systems influence the healthcare professionals to provide a holistic approach while following the biopsychosocial model of care that takes into consideration of the social, psychological as well as the biological determinants of health (Lichenstein & Malbrain, 2015). Holistic nursing would be the appropriate type of care or following the biopsychosocial model of care so that the bet care can be provided to the patients having the best health outcomes. Holistic nursing can be defined as the nursing practice that helps in healing of the patient as a whole.  Therefore, a holistic nursing professional are expected to take “mind-body-spirit-emotion-environment” approach in comparison to that of the traditional nursing which helps in providing the best care to patient (Kress et al., 2015). The assignment will mainly reflect how nurses should provide her own personalized theory by which she can be able to follow a framework that will help her to give the best care interventions to patients. In doing so, Jean Watson’s theory of caring and nursing should be followed which will help in incorporating all the aspect of holistic nursing in practice.

Nurses have the responsibility to adapt to practices that remains concerned with promotion of health, caring for the sick, prevention of illness and restoring for the health. Watson in her theory has stated that holistic healthcare should be the focus of nursing. She had defined nursing as the practice of the human science where health-illness of the patients and their experienced would be mediated by the professional, scientific, personal, esthetic as well as ethical human transactions. In this theory, she has put forward seven important assumptions along with ten important carative factors which together help in providing a framework by which nurses will be able to provide the best holistic care to patients (Feo et al., 2017).

Jean Watson’s Theory of Caring

The seven assumptions that she had stated helps nurses to develop a caring attitude by which they can establish effective relationship with the patients. The first of the assumption states that caring should be demonstrated and practice effectively in an interpersonal way. She has also stated that nursing professionals should consider of the carative factors that would help in the satisfaction of the certain human needs (Lichtenstein & Malbrain, 2015). She also assumed that effective caring helps in promoting health and individual as well as practice growth. She has also stated that nursing professionals should accept their clients not only in the way by which he or she is now but also as they become in the future (Gould et al., 2015). The caring environment should be such that it would provide the patients with the opportunity to decide the actions that they prefer to be the best for their own health but also at the same time ensuring that the health outcome of the patient should reach the potential. She also assumed that the nurse should provide equal importance to the science of curing as well as to the science of caring as the same time. She also assumed that a science of caring is central to nursing.

From the above assumptions, a nursing professional may develop a viewpoint of the aspects that Watson thinks to be important in the personal practice theory of every nursing professional. Interpersonal communication is one of the most effective methods of establishing effective relationship with the clients and therefore this assumption of Watson would help providing high quality care to the client in the healthcare environment (Harper et al., 2016). There are many benefits of establishing interpersonal communication and hence every nurse should involve this attribute in their personalized theory of care. Researchers are of the opinion that when nursing professionals are engaged into interpersonal communication with the patients, they will be able to provide individualized as well as person centered care to the patients. With the help of effective communication on an interpersonal note with that of the patients, nurses will be able to understand the different types challenges and concerns of the patients (Ceneteno et al., 2016). This will make them better prepared to advocate on behalf of the patients and address their issues effectively. This greater focus on interpersonal communication helps in putting higher focus on the health outcomes of the patient. Moreover, many studies also show state that when patients see that that the nurse is provided undivided attention to the care of the patient and genuinely want the patient to get well, the patients are seen to disclose their true feelings and symptoms much quicker and also seems highly satisfied by the care provided by the patient. Moreover, other researchers have also stated that when nurses communicate interpersonally with the patients, the nurses can meet the needs of the patient following the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. These mainly include meeting the needs of the patient that include safety, love as well as confidence, which are very important for the treatment and recovery of the patient (Leavey et al., 2016). Interpersonal communication not only benefits the patients but such form of communication with the colleagues also help in the improvement of their own morale but result in higher job satisfaction (Siouta et al., 2016). Therefore, this attribute of holistic care approach should be included in the personalized nursing theory of nurses.

Assumptions and Carative Factors

Watson had also assumed the importance of the decision-making ability of the patients in their own care, as she believed that it has the potential for better health outcome of the patients. Every nursing professional should make sure that they respect the autonomy and dignity of the patients and ask for informed consent before applying any intervention. They should also include the patients in decision-making session about the care plans and the treatment procedures that would be included. Researchers are of the opinion that nurses should influence autonomous decision making of the patients as evidences show that it results in higher patient satisfaction. Autonomous decision-making results in persistent as well as consistent behavior along with greater satisfaction of the patients in decision making as well as overall greater well being of the patients (Kaufman et al., 2014). Therefore, the personalized nursing theory of every individual should include the attribute of developing autonomy supportive environment to enable patients for exercising their own abilities for making their own decisions regarding different healthcare options. These would include screening procedures, differential treatment paths, medications, surgery options and many others. Evidences suggest that nurses who do not respect autonomy and informed consent and does not include patients in decision-making causes their patient to suffer from depression, anxiety, shock and many others. This attribute would help the patients not only be empowered but would also ensure their treatment adherence and outcomes (George, 2014).

Another important assumption of Watson is providing equal importance to caring as well as curing. The two terms might seem to be overlapping but they are distinct and combination equal importance in healthcare industries. A curing culture can be defined as the culture that provides the best modern interventions helping the patient to overcome the symptoms and develop his physiological stability to be fit and healthy (Finkelman et al., 2015). However, this form of curing can never be considered to be completely fruitful in helping the patient lead a better quality life. The compassion, care and kindness that the patient receives from the healthcare professionals in their strenuous times have huge contribution in developing their health towards betterment. Researchers are of the opinion that ethics and caring are intricately associated and therefore to provide best caring environment to the patient, ethical guidelines should be followed. Following ethical principles of dignity, beneficence, nonmaleficense and justice when followed by the nurses would help in ensuring a caring environment where the patient would be highly satisfied and would adhere with the plan developed by the students (Alligood, 2017). The nurse should undertake collective well as individual effort and thereby establish, improve and maintain ethical environment and condition in the workplace that would ensure safe, quality health care to the patients. Such caring attitude besides ensuring the importance of safety would also ensure emotional stability, flexibility, caring for all irrespective of their cultural background, empathy, attention to detail, physical endurance and even problem solving skills (Centeno et al., 2016). All these would help in developing a compassionate care procedure that satisfies the patients and helps in effectively curing the patient of his disorder. Therefore, this attribute of effective caring along with curing should be inculcated in the personalized theory of the nursing beings inspired from the assumptions of the stalwart of the healthcare professionals (Cobb, 2017).

Interpersonal Communication in Nursing Practice

Jean Watson has also proposed ten important carative factors that also need to be inculcated in the practice by the nursing professionals by which they can ensure high quality care to the patients. The first one is the formation of the humanistic as well as altruistic system of values that should guide them in their decision-making, caring attitudes and while communicating with the patients (Slatyer et al., 2016). Every nurse should inculcate the values and feelings of love and kindness as well as equanimity would ensure that the best quality care is provided to patients that ensure patient’s happiness (Galvin et al., 2018). The other carative factors are installation of hope and faith, cultivation of the feelings of the attributes of sensitivity to not only to self but also to that of the others, promotion as well as acceptance of the effective expression of both negative and positive feelings. The other carative factors are development of helping, trusting as well as human care relationship that would ensure satisfaction among the patient and empower the patient over his own health and condition. The other carative factors usually involve the systematic use of the scientific problem solving method for effective and creative decision-making, promotion of transpersonal teaching and learning, developing a supportive, corrective, societal as spiritual environment of caring are the other factors that influence treatment of patients (Watson et al., 2016). Other carative factors would include proper assistance of gratification of human needs as well as allowance of existential phenomenological spiritual forces.

The above mentioned carative factors can be effectively incorporated by the nursing professionals in their own personalized nursing theory. In many cases, it is seen that the modern science does not have anything to provide the patient in her life threatening condition. In such a situation, nurses play a great role as they can develop the power of infusing hope and faith in such difficult situations that often works wonders for the life of the patient (Curran, 2014). Therefore, a nurse should always try to install a feeling of faith and hope in every of the interventions they apply and should never be demotivated or demoralized in any strenuous condition. The nursing professionals should incorporate humanistic and altruistic traits in their personalized theory. This can be done by the development of the system of values that will guide the nurses in each of their activities, decisions and planning (Henderson et al., 2016). They will gain this system of values through proper life experiences, gaining of learning and exposure to humanities that will in turn influence altruistic behaviors. The nurse should also incorporate initiatives to develop a strong helping-trust by practicing the attributes for empathy, warmth as well as congruence. Through effective communication and exchange of feelings and concerns, nurses can develop rapport with their patients where feedback sharing and effective listening would help them to provide the best care to the clients through empathetic understanding. Therefore, the holistic care approach that should be involved in the nursing personalized theory of every professional would mainly aim in development of an environment that would be including a number of important aspects. The nurse would make sure that the environment would be supportive, protective as well as corrective socio-cultural, mental, physical and spiritual. This attribute in turn coincides with the caring principles that are required in the biopsychosocial model of care. Moreover, the nursing professionals should also make sure that they take all necessary interventions for making the situation comfortable for the patient (Leave et al., 2016). Development of sensitivity should be the core of the personalized nursing theory of every nurse and the nursing professionals should develop those emotions that help them to be truly connected with the patients.  a nurse should develop their own feelings where they can interact genuinely with the patients and be sensitive in her approaches towards the patients. This helps them to develop person-to-person relationship with higher level of functioning that promote health of the patient.

Autonomy Supportive Environment for Patients

Therefore, to be more specific the nursing professionals in their personalized theory should specifically provide importance to a number of specific activities to ensure holistic learning. Providing importance to patient name, making proper eye contact while communicating, asking patient how they feel sincerely, engaging in informal talk accordingly, using therapeutic touch, empowering patients to develop their confidence, self esteem, preserving their dignity are some of the ways by which  nursing professionals can ensure holistic approach in their treatment (Slaytor et al., 2016).  Moreover, the nursing professionals should also ensure educating the patients about the importance of self-care, helping to reduce the anxiety of patients by learning their needs and requirements, utilization of non-pharmacological methods to reduce depression, pain, frustration and others. The holistic approach that they would provide through their personalized theory of nursing should also ensure that the care that is provided to patient should be above any discrimination due to caste, creed and religion (Poitras et al., 2016).

From the above discussion, it becomes quite clear that holistic approach is one the most important trend that healthcare professionals should follow in their practices. However, this approach ensures that the care that is provided to patient should follow an established framework so that professionals can follow every aspects of holistic care and no aspects are missed. Therefore, Jean Watson’s caring theory in nursing can be followed where she had provided a framework by which nursing professionals can develop attribute that would help them to develop their skills and knowledge to provide the highest quality service to patients ensuring best health outcomes. Some of the attributes that should be incorporated is the development of interpersonal relationships with the patients through effective communication and respecting autonomy and dignity of the patients. Moreover, nursing professionals should also be developing traits and attributes which would not only helping the patients to get cured from their ailments but would also make them develop high quality life even after their discharge from the healthcare sectors. Nurses need to instill faith and hope in themselves and develop helping-trust relationship. They also need to be sensitive to their patients and be compassionate to them caring. They also need to be empathetic, be culturally aware and many others. All these traits should be inculcated in the nursing theory of each of the professionals. This would help in large number of benefits like faster recovery of the patients, shorter stay at hospitals, reduction in depression and anxiety of the patients, effective treatment of all the determinants of health and many others. This provides better quality life of the patient after discharge and enhances their dignity and respect.

Balancing Caring and Curing

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