Comfort Theory

“If a patient is cold, if a patient is feverish, if a patient is faint, if he is sick after taking food, if he has a bed-sore, it is generally the fault of not of the disease, but of the nursing. I use the word nursing for want of a better” (Nightingale, 1860, p. 8). While Nightingale stressed the impact of one’s environment to promote healing, Virginia Henderson aimed to establish on the fundamental needs as a knowledge base to guide Professional nursing practice. Henderson emphasized on fourteen components required for effective nursing care which includes: breathing normally, eating and drinking adequately, elimination of body wastes, movement and posturing, sleep and rest, select suitable clothes-dress and undress, maintaining body temperature, keeping body clean and well groomed, avoiding dangers in the environment, communication, worship according to one’s faith, work accomplishments, play or participate in various forms of recreation, and learn, discover, or satisfy the curiosity (Fernandes et al., 2015). Her division of the fourteen components acknowledged patient needs with a holistic approach that is applied through the nursing process in a clinical setting.

Regrettably, the existence of nursing depends on the medical inadequacy of others. Unfortunately, nursing exists because people get hurt, cannot care for themselves, or need assistance with daily activities. Carol Taylor (2011), author of Fundamentals of Nursing: The Art and Science of Nursing Care, writes, “Nursing care involves any number of activities, from carrying out complicated technical procedures to something as seemingly as holding a hand” (p. 5). Taylor explains it is the duty of a nurse not only to learn the pertinent skills but also to bond with and comfort others. Nurses have to do and become many things: They must be stern when necessary, compassionate when needed, open minded

Nursing theories have been a fundamental tool used to explain, guide and improve the practice of nursing. Theorists have contributed enormously to the growth of nursing as a profession. The four grand theorists I chose are Virginia Henderson, Peplau, Myra Levine and Jean Watson. These theorists have contributed tremendously in the field of nursing through their theories, and research. One thing the theorists have in common is that they are patient centered. They are all concerned on ways we can improve our responsibility to the patients, their families and the environment. They have different ideas but they are all aiming towards achieving the same goal, which is patient satisfaction and safety. Their differences are in their areas of

The nurse also has to be aware of the nature of the nurse-patient relationship, the environment in which it takes place in, as well as an understanding of the context and the moment of the interactions in order to share a meaningful experience. Finally, nurses have to be passionate about his or her career. Nurse’s care and tend to the patients’ needs because nurses are passionate about the career. Even though the fundamental pattern of personal knowing, it provides a holistic nature of knowing. Many humanistic theories and models of nursing have been derived from personal knowing such as Peplau’s interpersonal relation theory, Kolcaba’s comfort theory, and Jean Watson’s theory of caring.

This theory has been a guiding frame for a lot of studies and researches. Some of the areas are nurse midwifery, perioperative nursing, urinary bladder control, orthopedic nursing, etc. For clinical practice, the perianesthesia nurses incorporated comfort theory in managing their patients’ comfort. The comfort theory was also used as a teaching philosophy in a fast- track nursing education program for students. Kolcaba developed the General Comfort Questionnaire to measure holistic comfort in a sample of hospital and community participants. She also asserts that emphasizing and

The art of human caring is one of the most essential parts of the nursing profession. Caring is not something that you learn to do, but something that is within you. In nursing, it is important to know what kind of nurse you want to be as well as the care you intend to provide to your patients. The patient is the center of nursing, and it is your responsibility to make sure they are receiving the best care that they can receive. One of the most important things is to be able to set aside personal beliefs and morals in order to provide patient centered care. The way that you approach and care for a patient is either going to make or break the effect of the care you will be implementing to the patient.

First of all, I recognized that I was dealing with humans, and not just dealing with a disease process and application of the nursing process in the aspect of restoring patient health. I was dealing with emotions, and families, and cultural beliefs that influenced individual’s aspects of care. I started to see that health did not just incorporate healing the disease, but also recognized the importance of making sure patient’s felt that their

Nursing can be a demanding career, but the benefits far much outweigh the challenges. Most importantly, it’s the rewards it offers by allowing an opportunity to make a difference in another person’s life through the provision of care when they need it. Just as Patricia Benner theorized in her book “Novice to Expert,” nursing encompasses both educational knowledge and extensive clinical experience acquired throughout one’s career. This far, I continue to acquire knowledge and clinical knowhow which will promote proper and efficient care to patients. Since I began practicing one year ago in a long-term healthcare facility, I have interacted with patients, families, physicians and other members of the healthcare team to coordinate patient’s care which has enabled me to gain confidence in myself. While I cannot deny that it was difficult to transition from a student to a licensed nurse, I learnt to overcome these challenges and focus on my strengths. Practicing as an LPN has provided a platform to learn and gain experience even though the duties and responsibilities are limited by the scope of practice.

It is a mid-range theory because of the limited number of concepts and propositions, its low level of abstraction, and ease of application to actual practice (Petiprin, 2015). There are three steps required in order to practically use Kolcaba’s theory. In order to use the theory successfully, one must understand the technical definition of comfort and its origins, understand the relationships between the general concepts involved in the theory, and lastly, relate the general concepts to specific problems within the clinical situation to which it is being applied in order to enlighten practice and create research questions (Kolcaba,

It is my personal belief that environment plays a considerable role in the patient’s short term and long-term wellbeing. When nurses acknowledge the environment that the patient is interacting in while receiving their care we know this greatly impacts the overall successfulness of the care plan. The patient’s feelings must be

In the physical realm of patient-centered care pain, comfort, sleep, and rest are important aspects of the fourth dimension of patient-centered care. Patient-centered care is the complete focus of the medical team on providing respectful care to meet patient needs, preferences and values guide decisions on each individual patient care. To understand the subjective view of the patient, these four aspects are at the forefront of their needs within the hospital setting to provide the best patient outcome. Nurses provide good patient-centered care by actively partnering with patients to determine care priorities and plans to tailor their level of involvement, according to their preferences, and being flexible by changing the care plan as the situation changes including providing smooth transitions between care goals. By doing this, nurses can assist patients with all pain by providing comfort and assuring the patient that there will be no deficiency of their quality of sleep.

Person is the recipient of nursing care. The person relating to the theory of comfort includes individuals, families, institutions, or communities.

The concept of comfort is one that nurses provide every shift; however, it is not always easy to define. Katherine Kolcaba’s Comfort Theory will be used. Walker and Avant’s method for concept analysis will be used. The first step is to select a concept, which is comfort. The next step is determining the purpose of the analysis. The purpose is to define what comfort means and what comfort measures are and how they are used in nursing. The third step is to identify the uses of the concept of comfort. This includes definitions of term comfort and a literature search. The fourth step is to determine the defining attributes of comfort. This allows for insight into the

According to Kolcaba, (1994) the purpose of CT is to describe how negative tensions (discomfort) can be reduced by increasing comfort (positive tensions) through nursing intervention that eventually leads to an outcome of enhanced health-seeking behavior (HSB). Kolcaba provides an in-depth description of her theory that allows the reader to understand concepts and relationships.

Comfort is defined by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary (2014) as “a state or situation in which you are relaxed and do not have any physically unpleasant feelings caused by pain, heat, cold, etc.” or as “a state or feeling of being less worried, upset, frightened, etc., during a time of trouble or emotional pain.” Dictionary.com (2014) defines comfort as “a feeling of relief or consolationm” or “a person or thing that gives consolation,”or “ a state of ease and satisfaction of bodily wants, with freedom from pain and anxiety.” Dictionary.com (2014) lists the origin of the word comfort as coming from the 13th century Old French term confort, meaning “source of alleviation or relief.” One can see there are multiple meanings and interpretations of the word comfort. This paper will set forth to discuss the word comfort as a concept and its interpretation and use in many disciplines, including its significance in nursing.