Kolcaba Middle Range Comfort Case Study

pain is the usual cause for persons to look for treatment. Inadequate pain management can cause delay in healing process. It can also leads to prolonged hospital stay. The acute pain management theory describe how nurse can manage pain with minimal effects from the pharmacological interventions and use of alternative methods of pain management (Good &Moore, 1996) The main factors are in the management of pain are Pharmacological, non-pharmacological, patient participation, education and different interventions. Effective pain management involves the application of non-pharmacological interventions and usage of pain medications. (McEwen & Willis, 2014). The pain management theory deals with management of pain in daily basis. It offers the knowledge about alternate methods in pain

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

There are many concepts in nursing theory that need further clarification. A concept analysis can provide a thorough explanation of a term in nursing theory that will help healthcare professionals better communicate. The Walker and Avant approach to perform a concept analysis was specifically formulated with nurses in mind (McEwen & Wills, 2014). Walker and Avant proposed a concept analysis be used to further understand the meaning of a term or concept in anticipation that those using the term would have the same understanding (McEwen & Wills, 2014). When a term or concept is in question or needs further questioning in any field of nursing, a concept analysis is indicated (McEwen & Wills, 2014). Walker and Avant’s concept analysis is comprised of eight steps; select a concept, determine the aim of the concept, list all possible uses of concept, defining attributes, model case, alterative case (borderline, related, contrary, invented, and illegitimate), list antecedents and consequences, and lastly list empirical referents (McEwen & Wills, 2014). The defining attributes are deemed most beneficial in obtaining comprehension due to the fact that these attributes show which show up in regularity when relating to the concept (Linda & Judith, 2011). Using the Walker and Avant concept analysis model a formal concept analysis will be performed on the term “pain”. Middle range nursing theory gave the example of pain as one of many concepts used in nursing (McEwen & Wills, 2014).

By educating staff on nursing sensitive indicators and the issues that need to be addressed, could advance the quality of patient care throughout the hospital. In this case, educating hospital staff on ways to prevent restraint use and pressure sore prevention, the staff could have possible prevented the use of restraints and the pressure sore. Also, by educating staff on how to use restraints would be

Conceptual analysis is integral in understanding nursing theory. According to Walker and Avant (1995), concept analysis allows nursing scholars to examine the attributes or characteristics of a concept. It can be used to evaluate a nursing theory and allows for examination of concepts for relevance and fit within the theory. The phenomena of pain will be discussed in this paper and how it relates to the comfort theory.

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,

In the Comfort Theory, proposed by Catharine Kolcaba, the tradition of nursing discipline - deriving theory from former disciplines is examined, and the notion of former healthcare disciplines deriving nursing theory has been recommended. A short literature review of plagiarized theory sets the position to examine the modification of the theory. She describes convenience as one of the mechanisms for the full rehabilitation of the patient, and the personal desire of the patient to recovery across the permanency of the diseases. Holistic comfort has been described as the instant experience of being powered through having the requirements for relief, transcendence, and ease met in the four bases of experience (physical, environmental, psycho-spiritual, and social). Providing comfort is necessary for the care of a patient in the hospital background (March, 2009). Nowadays, comfort is being regarded as the last outcome for the terminally sick patient, and it is not seen as a standard hospital practice, when they prophylactically or for protocol, try to develop the patient’s health status. Theorist Katherine Kolcaba was among the first nurse researchers to advance a theory of comfort to develop patient’s outcomes and satisfaction, and to improve institutional integrity. This paper aims at describing the Comfort Theory, as well as its weaknesses and strengths as a middle-rank theory. It also defines its applications beyond the healthcare background, bases for further

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.

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

Concept analysis of comfort Background : Comfort is an important concept and core value of nursing. comfort is a broad concept that has multiple uses in literature (Hu Li Za Zhi 2012) , it describes physical , emotional spiritual and psychological status changes in human being , Reference to the concept of comfort measures is growing in the nursing and medical literature (Oliveira,2013) .

Patients and family members in medical intensive care units experience pain and anxiety while overcoming illness and disease. Nightingale was one of the first nurses to recognize that the relationship between health and comfort is strong and direct (Peterson & Bredow, 2013, p. 194). Kolcaba’s theory of comfort addresses the need for nurses to provide patients and families with relief, ease, and transcendence to facilitate health-seeking behavior (McEwen & Wills, 2011, p. 234). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Kolcaba’s theory of comfort (CT) using the Synthesized Method described by McEwen and Wills (2011) and to describe how this theory can be applied in practice.

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.

The developmental stages of the mid range theory of comfort are discussed in this article, which includes its philosophic orientation and its inductive, deductive, and retroductive reasoning. Other steps that are described are the concept analysis of comfort, the operationalization of the outcome of patient comfort, the application of the theory in previous nursing studies, and the evaluation of the current theory as it has been adapted for outcomes research. This article is a guide that shows how a concept grows, becomes embedded in theory, is tested, and is adapted for the rapidly changing health care environment. The theory of comfort

Conclusion Because of the universal nature of the concept of comfort, it can be postulated that the achievement of optimum comfort is an suitable universal goal for healthcare in general. Although Kolcaba describes comfort theory within the field of nursing, she also speculates that it could potentially be implemented as an institution-wide approach. In light of the present nursing shortage, the appropriateness of a team-based approach to healthcare is apparent.