'Nursing Profession: Professional Ethics and Guiding Theories' - Essay Sample

Introduction

The nursing profession is focused on the provision of care to individuals to maintain, regain, or improve their health conditions. Like many professions, the nursing care industry has a significant focus of care on the clients, and the nurses follow a strict code of professional ethics that informs their conduct with clients. To effectively undertake nursing activities, nurses of the earlier days did structure guiding theories that have become the hallmark of the profession. This paper partakes to explicate Katharine Kolcaba's concept of comfort theory as applied in the nursing profession. Berntzen et al. (2020) stated that the model came into practice in the 1990s when Kolcaba realized that there is little written content about the issue of comfort in nursing.

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Theorizing

Though comfort is an integral part of the nursing profession, many aspects related to this phenomenon are yet to be addressed by nurses. Health is a vital issue to humans' well-being. Unhealthy individuals are uncomfortable in stature and cannot be duly productive in the family, economy, or the world at large (Smith & Parker, 2015). As such, it is prudent that nurses aim to achieve ultimate comfort for their patients and ensure that medical interventions solicit for the ultimate satisfaction of the client.

Nursing practitioners create theories as a result of direct interaction with clients in the nursing profession. As nurses interact and relate with their patients, certain aspects related to healthcare come up, and the nurses deduce on such insight to get forecast about what would be best for the patients (Crowell & Boynton, 2020). As such, comfort nursing theory is formulated concerning the following paradigms; the first concept is about the person. The second is the environment, and the third is health. Lastly, the comfort theory in the nursing profession relies on the concept of what makes a nurse. It is agreeable that just giving tender loving care to ailing persons does not qualify one to be a nurse.

As such, in the first paradigm of the patient as a significant pillar of nursing, Kolcaba's comfort theory aims to ensure that the patient gets as little discomfort as possible (Crowell & Boynton, 2020). The nursing professionals should seek to alleviate pain at all medical procedures and steps. The environment within which nursing care is given should as well be hygienically clean and devoid of distractions. Conducive health environment hastens the patients' recovery process.

Quality health care is a vital concept in matters related to nursing (Betz &Coyne, 2020). It is this health aspect that gives rise to the necessity for nurses. As they strive to retain, restore, or improve people's health conditions, nurses should not neglect care unto themselves whatsoever (Smith & Parker, 2015). Care to oneself confronts the last concept of the nursing profession, as unhealthy caregivers cannot be productive and efficient enough to solve patients' medical problems when the nurses are ailing themselves.

Syntax

The theory of comfort has various instances for interpretation within the nursing profession. In the physical realm, satisfaction relates to the notion of the feeling of wholesomeness to individuals' sensory organs, internal self-awareness, and bodily sensations. Oster & Braaten (2016) inform that patient comfort is a significant consideration for this profession. Nurses always strive to manage intervening variables to ensure the best nursing outcome, and by so doing, they establish improved and well sustainable health conditions for their patients.

Besides, it is typical of the nursing profession to consider the impact of the intervening variables on the quality and outcome of nursing care. The comfort theory understands intervening variables as those factors served alongside nursing care that has the potential to alter the outcome of nursing interventions (Foli & Thompson, 2019). Moreover, the theorist acknowledges that human comfortability is a result of different holistic stimuli. Humans respond to various stimuli differently, and there is no single standard response to a particular type of stimulus (Oster & Braaten, 2016). Everyone has individual reactions and understanding of what comfort is. Therefore, in theorizing this philosophy, Katherine Kolcaba established the middle-range theory to be defined alongside institutional integrity and outcomes.

Theory Testing

Comfort theory has a broad scope of application within and without the nursing profession even though this a middle-range approach with a low level of abstraction. Perhaps due to its grander focus and concrete connections to other nursing practices and procedures, does the comfort theory have a broad-reaching impact. DeNisco (2019) conducted a qualitative research study to determine the degree of comfort felt by the other members of an ailing individual. Amongst other research variables, the study revealed that family members perceive the nursing profession to have deviated from the primary concern of care for the sick and their families.

The present nursing profession is more cure-oriented and technologically advanced that the concept of comfort is a secondary concern to the nurses of today. More people are delving into the field of nursing, not as professionals, but as parse investigators to check into the degree of conformance to comfort theory as practiced by the nursing professionals. This theory is tested in different realms, including the psycho-spiritual, physical, and social concepts (Smith & Parker, 2015). The approach also relates to environmental aspects of comfort, whereby a patient's external environment considers value in the recovery process.

Evaluation

From Watson's human care theory, the comfort theory comes to support the notion of care in the nursing profession. The nursing practice is extensively utilizing research-based intervention to offer the best care measures and policies concerning human health. From Florence Nightingale's evidence-based practice pioneered in the 1990s, the nursing profession has dramatically improved the quality of care offered to the patients (DeNisco, 2019). For instance, asthmatic patients and patients with coronary failures are better treated with the utilization of evidence-based medical approaches and intervention to alleviate the degree of pain of the patients.

To assess the needs of patients, the nursing profession develops and implements appropriate measures to execute nursing care activities. Families, individuals, and institutions as well communities are all dependent on nursing care. As a result, surmountable research and evidence are gathered to inform on the state of comfortability engineered by the nurses while undertaking their duties. Of particular importance to the application of comfort, a theory is an aspect of recognizing the needs of the patients and the wants of the families or guardians and dependents.

Summary and Conclusion

Nursing is a broad-based profession that forms the fabric of society. As health is a vital human need, so is the necessity for nurses in the community. However, having nurses with irresolute motivation to effectively undertake nursing duties is a recipe for a failing society. Therefore, theorists come into play to give structure to the nursing profession (Smith & Parker, 2015). As the information contained herein depicts, one such theory is the theory of comfort by Katherine Kolcaba.

Kolcaba's comfort theory renders credibility to the practice of nursing as it conditions nurses to actively put in practice the aspect of compassion for the patients. McCormack, Manley, and Titchen (2013) informed that for a long time, the nursing profession had neglected the element of comfort as an essential ingredient to health care. Through this theory, patients and their family members, as well as friends, are now able to meet friendlier and more relaxed nursing environments. This aspect facilitates quicker recovery of the patients, as well as endears nurses to the public who are now more accommodative to the prescribed medical interventions.

References

Berntzen, H., Bjork, I. T., Storsveen, A. M., & Woien, H. (2020). "Please, mind the gap": A secondary analysis of discomfort and comfort in intensive care. Journal of Clinical Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15260

Betz, C. L., & Coyne, I. T. (2020). Healthcare transition: An overview and introduction. In transition from pediatric to adult healthcare services for adolescents and young adults with long-term conditions (pp. 1-17). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23384-6_1

Crowell, D. M., & Boynton, B. (2020). Complexity leadership: Nursing's role in health care delivery. FA Davis.

DeNisco, S. M. (2019). Advanced practice nursing. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Foli, K. J., & Thompson, J. R. (2019). The influence of psychological trauma in nursing. Sigma.

McCormack, B., Manley, K., & Titchen, A. (Eds.). (2013). Practice development in nursing and healthcare. John Wiley & Sons.

Oster, C., & Braaten, J. (2016). High reliability organizations: a healthcare handbook for patient safety & quality. Sigma Theta Tau.

Smith, M. C., & Parker, M. E. (2015). Nursing theories and nursing practice (4th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davis Company.