Theory of Nursing Care

Running head: THEORY OF NURSING CARE
THEORY OF NURSING CARE
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THEORY OF NURSING CARE
A personal story of caring:
During the time of placement, I got the opportunity to care for an 80 year old patient
namely Samantha Decker. She was admitted to the ward by a neighbor after she had faced a fall
in her apartment. She was seen to suffer from multiple chronic disorders like chronic heart
disorder along with unmanaged levels of diabetes and obesity. She had no family members in the
city and lives alone in her apartment. She often forgets to takes medicines as well. Often she
passes days without meals and mainly orders for takeaway foods. She had mainly faced a fall
after she had taken double doses of insulin resulting in a situation of hypoglycemia. After being
admitted, her initial treatment was done by the emergency team of healthcare professionals and
then she was transferred to the general ward for further treatment and care services. In this ward,
I noticed that although all members were trying their best to provide the bets interventions for
recovery of her health, she was completely withdrawn. She did not respond to the professionals
and did not comply with the care as well. I realized that I need to make her comfortable as she
might be feeling uncomfortable in the new environment within the hospital. I started
communicating with her on a daily basis and tried to stay beside her as much as possible so that
she does not feel lonely. We talked over different types of topics like foods, destinations,
shopping, films, sports and many others. Gradually, I developed a rapport with her for which she
started relying on me and trusting me. Gradually her compliance with my interventions
increased. I discussed with her one day to know the reason why she was withdrawn, she said that
she felt that she would not be able to live anymore and that she would die soon because of her
sufferings. I communicated empathetically with her and with compassion making her understand
that with lifestyle modifications, she would be able to live for longer days. This satisfied her and
her adherence with treatment increased.

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THEORY OF NURSING CARE
Concepts of caring and links with nursing practice:
The nursing process comprises of the important steps of assessment, plan, intervention as
well as evaluation. Experts are of the opinion that the assessment should include observation of
the patient, identification as well as reviewing the problem and formation of the hypothesis. Then
nurses need to develop a care plan (Clarke et al., 2016). Creating a care plan mainly helps the
nurses in determining how the variables need to be measured as well as examined and what kind
of data needs to be collected. This is then followed by the intervention process which is actually
the implementation of the care plan as well as data collection (Munthe et al., 2018). The
evaluation part mainly analyses the data and thereby helps in interpretation of the results and also
might lead to additional hypothesis. Apart from the scientific procedures that the nursing process
follows, the concept of nursing I also associated with the art of caring. Watson is of the opinion
that practice of caring is central to nursing and the nurses need to accept that patients as they are
irrespective of their backgrounds or their present conditions. Nurses need to ensure that they are
authentically present in the moment being with the patient and develop an emotional attachment
with the patient who mainly remains nervous and anxious. Nurses need to ensure that their caring
services should contain carative factors that result in satisfaction of the human needs of the
patients (Poey et al., 2017). Studies are of the opinion that when nurses can develop therapeutic
relationship with patient, the patients starts trusting the professionals and their adherence to the
treatment increases. It has been also found that development of rapport helps patients overcome
anxiety and stress and they feel comfortable in the presence of the professionals. This has
positive impact on their health. Patient-centered care is another important aspect of the nursing
process. It advises the burses to include the patients in the care processes. Patients need to be
given the authority to make their own healthcare decisions by themselves (Alligood, 2017). They