Family Nurse Practitioners: Roles, Issues, and Theory Implementation

This presentation discusses the roles and responsibilities of family nurse practitioners (FNPs) in delivering family-focused care. It also highlights the major issue of conflict of interest faced by FNPs and proposes the implementation of the Comfort Theory to address this issue. The Comfort Theory, developed by Kolcaba, emphasizes the importance of comfort as an essential component of healthcare. By following this theory, FNPs can provide holistic care and create a comforting environment for patients.

Family nurse
practice
Name of the Student
Name of the University

Family nurse practitioners
• Family nurse practitioners (FNP) are
advanced registered nurses who work in
collaboration or autonomously with different
healthcare professionals for delivering
family-focused care.
• They offer a plethora of care services that
are centred around family units
• They play an important role in disease
prevention and health promotion, and also
offer counselling and direct care across the
lifespan of patients

Nursing theory
• Theory of Comfort has been postulated by Kolcaba in
1990s (Krinsky, Murillo & Johnson, 2014).
• It is a middle-range theory that is can be applied to the
domains of education, health practice, and research.
• It holds the potential of placing comfort as an essential
prerequisite of healthcare
• It considers comfort as an immediate outcome of health
and social care.

Nursing theory
• The model explains the concept of comfort in
the form of a central need of all human beings
for ease, relief, or transcendence rising from
stressful health situations
• Comfort has been found to enhance the health-
seeking behaviour among affected patients,
nurses and family members (Kolcaba et al.,
2015).
• It also focuses on the domains of holistic care,
caring, intervening variables, and institutional
integrity.

Issue
• Conflict of interest is a major issue faced by family nurse
practitioners, while delivering care services to patients
• It occurs when the personal, commercial, academic,
political or business interests of the nurse interferes with
the professional responsibilities
• Prevents delivering care based on the best interests of the
patients and family members

Theory implementation
• FNPs should follow the theory and consider patient
assessment and holistic care as their primary
objectives, based on which they are expected to
recommend interventions
• Regardless of the fiscal relationship with any health
organisation, the chief aim of FNP must focus on
addressing the comfort needs of the patients, and
reassessing these needs after appropriate treatment
implementation
• The theory will also help FNPs to identify the unique
perspectives of each nurse, following which tailored
treatment plans should be formulated

Theory implementation
• Nurses should use the theory to provide a comforting and
calm environment to all patients.
• With a change in the comfort needs, the theory will also allow
FNPs to update their proposed interventions, notwithstanding
any personal preferences or benefits (Sofhauser, 2016).
• Making the patient comfortable will increase the zeal among
nurses to enhance the physical and emotional functioning of
the patients, thereby facilitating the latter’s recuperation.

Conclusion
• FNPs are trained to work with adults and children in
family settings
• They maintain wellness and health of patients in the long
run
• They might face the issue of conflict of interest while
providing care services
• Adoption of Kolkaba Comfort theory will help in
addressing this issue

References
Aksoy Derya, Y., & Pasinlioğlu, T. (2017). The effect of nursing care based on comfort theory on women's postpartum comfort levels after caesarean
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Dahrouge, S., Muldoon, L., Ward, N., Hogg, W., Russell, G., & Taylor-Sussex, R. (2014). Roles of nurse practitioners and family physicians in
community health centres. Canadian Family Physician, 60(11), 1020-1027. Retrieved from http://www.cfp.ca/content/60/11/1020.full
Egger-Rainer, A., Trinka, E., Höfler, J., & Dieplinger, A. M. (2017). Epilepsy monitoring–The patients' views: A qualitative study based on Kolcaba's
Comfort Theory. Epilepsy & Behavior, 68, 208-215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2016.11.005
Joyner, M. J., & Paneth, N. (2015). Seven questions for personalized medicine. Jama, 314(10), 999-1000. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.7725
Kolcaba, K. A. T. H. A. R. I. N. E. (2015). Katherine Kolcaba’s comfort theory. Nursing theories and nursing practice, 381-392. https
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Krinsky, R., Murillo, I., & Johnson, J. (2014). A practical application of Katharine Kolcaba's comfort theory to cardiac patients. Applied Nursing
Research, 27(2), 147-150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apnr.2014.02.004
Muth, C. C. (2017). Conflict of interest in medicine. Jama, 317(17), 1812-1812. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.4044
Pinto, S., Caldeira, S., Martins, J. C., & Rodgers, B. (2017). Evolutionary analysis of the concept of comfort. Holistic nursing practice, 31(4), 243-
252. doi: 10.1097/HNP.0000000000000217
Seyedfatemi, N., Rafii, F., Rezaei, M., & Kolcaba, K. (2014). Comfort and hope in the preanesthesia stage in patients undergoing surgery. Journal of
PeriAnesthesia Nursing, 29(3), 213-220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jopan.2013.05.018
Sofhauser, C. (2016). Intention in nursing practice. Nursing science quarterly, 29(1), 31-34. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0894318415614629

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