Professional Practice in Home-Based Care: A Nursing Experience

This article discusses a nursing professional's experience in providing home-based care to a pregnant woman with cardiovascular complications and depression. The article emphasizes the importance of psychological and social support in home-based care. The author reflects on the experience, interprets the situation, and makes a decision to apply the experience to future cases.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Objective:
Home based care is defined as the care provided by the trained health worker at home to
the ill person referred by the person directly, by the family, by friends or other local community
member. It is not just about providing care service to person in bedridden condition but about
providing psychological and social support in order to reduce discrimination and stigma (Coyte,
& McKeever, 2016). Such idea has attracted me to involve in the home based care in order to
provide essential support to the people with need.
Reflection:
I have been working as a nursing professional from the last 2 years. Last year during
Christmas, I was assigned the duty to work as a home-care nursing professional for the ‘ABC’
family. The family comprised of a lovely couple who was expecting their first baby. I was taking
care of the pregnant lady who had already suffered a miscarriage and was a victim of
cardiovascular complications and depression related to pregnancy. The case seemed a critical
one as it required catering to the emotional aspect of the patient in addition to the physical health
care at home. During managing the case and providing care to the patient I was aware as there
was no chance to do any mistakes. I had to encourage the lady throughout the care session and
take care of minor to severe issue regarding her health. After few months the lady has given birth
to a girl child and the happiness on her face make me satisfied regarding my service. Their
appreciation had inspired me to work more for such needy people. The experience has helped me
to understand the responsibility of a nurse in an effective manner. The reaction of the couple has
helped me to understand that I have succeeded to meet the requirements of the patient. The
experience has made me more confident regarding my choice to involve in the home based care.

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Interpretation:
In order to evaluate the degree of complication and design a strategic intervention, I made
the conceptual use of the model and carried out the treatment in a step wise manner. The first
step involved the patient in answering a set of questions based on her past miscarriage
experience (Verkan&Walden,2014). Based on the critical evaluation of the responses given by
the patient, I focused on the maintenance of a proper diet without any inclusion of sedatives and
also counseled the husband to focus on maintaining a happy environment at home for the good
health of both the mother and the baby (Alden et al.,2013). I have focused on the medication
that she had undertaken and an analysis of whether or not the medications had a side-effect in
terms of mental stress or depression that she said to have faced during her first pregnancy. The
experience has helped me to learn many aspects regarding the management of pregnancy, cardio
vascular risk and depression as well. I can relate my experience with the concept of evidence
based practice as I have used most recent procedure of providing care to such patients based on
the evidence provided by research (Schetter & Tanner, 2012). Now I can say that with proper
home based care it is possible to help people in recovering their health issue and achieve
expected outcomes from the treatment.
Decision:
Before attending the family I usually believed that home based care is for the older
person who is suffering from bedridden condition, but the experience has changed my thinking. I
have learned that home based care could be provided to any people with need and it helps the
patient to recover fast through psychological and social support. I have decided to apply my

3PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
experience while handling other similar cases in order to achieve desired outcomes. It would
help me to establish myself as a successful nurse in future.

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References:
Alden, K. R., Lowdermilk, D. L., Cashion, M. C., & Perry, S. E. (2013). Maternity and women's
health care-E-book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Coyte, P. C., &McKeever, P. (2016). Home care in Canada: Passing the buck. Canadian Journal
of Nursing Research Archive, 33(2).
Schetter, C. D., & Tanner, L. (2012). Anxiety, depression and stress in pregnancy: implications
for mothers, children, research, and practice. Current opinion in psychiatry, 25(2), 141.
Verklan, M. T., & Walden, M. (2014). Core Curriculum for Neonatal Intensive Care Nursing-E-
Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.