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Holistic comfort is a theory proposed by Katherine Kolcaba in 1994. It is based on meeting a patients need for comfort and ensuring their recovery. This theory has gained popularity to such an extent that it is a requirement for nurses in the current healthcare system of most countries. This paper aims to explain the theory of holistic comfort, its origins, and its application in nursing practice.
The theory of holistic comfort has many implications for medical professionals interventions relative to the patients needs. This theory of nursing, as defined by Kolcaba (1994), is the satisfaction of the basic human needs for relief, ease or transcendence arising from healthcare situations that are stressful (p. 1178). Patients experience significant discomfort from worry for their health and potentially painful treatment. Their anxiety means they are constantly stressed in a hospital environment and distance themselves from healthcare providers. The outcomes of patients stress hinder recovery, and holistic comfort theory strives to minimize the distress a patient might feel. Kolcaba (1994) gives three definitions of comfort relief means meeting the patients needs, ease is tranquility and peacefulness, and transcendence is the recovery and strengthening of the patients health. Ideally, comfort can be perceived through each context and defined as one or more of three characterizations.
The origins of this theory are explained through the context of the time of 20th-century healthcare practices. According to Pereira et al. (2020), the mid-twentieth century economy was so unstable that nurses switched from private practice to hospital work. Pereira et al. (2020) stated: this institutionalization of health practices caused an increase in medical control, subordinating the patients comfort to medical goals (p. 5). With this change in nursing care, healthcare providers became much more distant from their patients because of the absence of prolonged face-to-face contact and the growth of the number of patients. For this reason, patients became anxious and stressed when going to doctors. It resulted in the need for comfort and emphasized its importance in nursing. The scope of the theory is grand since it invokes the general understanding of human psychological processes in a hospital setting, independently of the patients social group or disease.
The theorys main concepts are the patients needs, comforting interventions by the nurse, their effectiveness, how the patient perceives said interventions and their effectiveness, and outcomes. The theoretical definition of outcomes denotes that they are health-seeking activities by the patient and overall institutional integrity (Kolcaba, 1994). The other important concept of Kolcabas (1994) theory is the comforting interventions, which are defined as appropriate measures based on the persons past experience and many other factors, such as gender, age, emotional state, relationships with family members, and their current environment. The nurse must adequately assess these factors in determining the best comfort strategies. The effectiveness of the interventions and the patients perception are interconnected concepts. The patients mental state pre-intervention significantly impacts the effectiveness of the process, and the effectiveness of the comfort strategy will affect the persons perception of it.
Holistic comfort is another essential concept in treatment due to the fact that it is connected to peoples natural need for relief, ease, and transcendence. The unfulfillment of the mentioned needs may lead to significant stress for the patients, especially young children. Bice et al. (2019) explain that poor procedure experiences at an early age contribute to the development of anxiety, insomnia, embarrassment, aggression, and distrust of nurses. Thus, the authors established that holistic comfort is a necessity for children, which has wide-reaching implications for not only pediatric practice but also the entire sphere of medical treatment.
To conclude, this paper described the theory of holistic comfort by Katherine Kolbaca and thoroughly examined its principles and concepts. It demonstrated the way that comfort is achieved through meeting the patients need with intervention processes. The paper explained the context of its conception and modern-day application in the healthcare system and emphasized the importance of holistic comfort for the recovery of the patient.
References
Bice, A. A., Pond, S. R., & Lutz, J. B. (2019). The pediatric procedural holistic comfort assessment: A feasibility study. Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 33(5), 509-519. Web.
Kolcaba, K. Y. (1994). A theory of holistic comfort for nursing. Journal of advanced nursing, 19(6), 1178-1184. Web.
Pereira, S. C. N. C., Mercês, A. M. F. C., Lopes, O. P. R., Souza, F. J., Souto, S. S. J., & Brandão, A. G. M. (2020). Analysis of the concept of comfort: Contributions to the diagnosis of readiness for enhanced comfort. Escola Anna Nery, 24 (2). Web.
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