The Relationship Between Kolcaba's Comfort Theory and Orthopedic Nursing

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

quality of patient care, and can be implemented in practice, to provide solutions to nursing

Appropriate assessment and management of pain should be paramount to nurses working in the elderly care sector.

First pain is an everyday experiences that is expressed through the use of language and is then legitimized (Waddie, 1996). If a patient as a history of depression or chronic pain they have pain every day and the concept is used to help explain their pain. As nurse we use the concept of pain to find a base line of the pain and to assess new pain. In surgical patients they may have multiple types of pain from the incision, emotional, and history. The concept educates the nurse of the different form that pain can present itself. Pain can also guide how we treat the patient. Emotional pain would not be treated with the “so know pain pills”, but with talking or listening to patient. Concept of pain also address the different form of patient and how the nurse and patient response to it. If a patient is having somatic pain from an incision the nurse could react by applying heat or ice. Pain is what the patient says it is.

The comfort theory is a nursing theory that was first developed in the 1990s by Katharine Kolcaba. The Theory of Comfort considers patients to be individuals, families, institutions, or communities in need of health care (Petiprin, 2015). The environment in which this theory can be applied is in any aspect of the patient, family, or institutional surroundings that can be controlled by a nurse or a patient’s loved one by means to enhance their comfort. Health is considered to be optimal functioning in the patient, as defined by the patient, group, family, or community (Kolcaba, 2005).

This paper will examine the the nurses and pain assessment in the hospitalized patient. The paper will focus on pain and pain management and the need to assess pain. How much percentage of the population in the U.S. are experienced pain, and how much of the population abuse the pain medications. There are many barriers which hinder nurses from perform accurate pain assessment. These barriers are nurses experience, competence, perception and manipulation. Pain is subjective, but pain assessment tools and nurses’ perception may contraindicate with what the patients stated. Thus, the paper will try to find solution to accurate pain assessment during hospitalization, especially with abuse of opioid.

This essay will aim to look at the main principles of cancer pain management on an acute medical ward in a hospital setting. My rational for choosing to look at this is to expend my knowledge of the chosen area. Within this pieces of work I will look to include physiological, psychological and sociological aspects of pain management.

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.

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.

An in-depth review of the nursing literature was completed to establish the state of science in reference to providing comfort to the postoperative patient after open heart surgery. PubMed, CINAHL and Google Scholar were utilized to complete the investigation using search terms such as “open heart surgery, comfort, pain relief and

was moderate. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the knowledge and attitudes of nurse’s and their practices regarding post-operative pain management in Bangladesh.40

Having worked in critical care and the long-term care setting as a nurse, I have notice the importance of providing comfort in many different situations. Nurses are constantly assessing patients, families, and other members of the healthcare team to provide comfort by using appropriate protocols and simple interventions that are in place. This can be extremely difficult because meeting a person’s expectations of comfort are all different and can only be defined by the patient. Therefore, I decided to explore the comfort theory developed by Katharine Kolcaba (March & McCormack, 2009). According to the comfort theory, comfort is defined by each person’s perspective of what comfort is to them (March & McCormack, 2009). The comfort theory is noted to be beneficial to the entire healthcare team, including patients and families (Boudiab & Kolcaba, 2015). This theory can be utilized in all areas of nursing practices. According to March and McCormack, (2009) the comfort theory was introduced by Katharine Kolcaba to help patients and families by providing comfort through a holistic approach. Through this approach, interventions are developed to meet the patients physical, psychospiritual, environmental, and sociocultural goals (Goodwin, Sener, & Steiner, 2007). These contexts are greatly related to the metaparadigms of nursing which are person, environment, health, and nursing (March & McCormack, 2009). The three forms of the comfort theory she

In the context of the caring relationship, nurses perform a primary role in the assessment and management of pain and other

Mrs. Mavis is a Palliative patient who is receiving comfort measures in her nursing care. It is important to evaluate the effectiveness of her pain