Interview: Exploring One’s Experience as a Patient
An overview of patients’ experiences is crucial to the further improvement of the quality of care. Therefore, conducting interviews as the quickest way of analyzing patient-specific challenges associated with receiving appropriate healthcare services is necessary. To improve the quality of care, a patient was recruited for participation in an interview. A 67-year-old African-American woman provided her feedback about receiving treatment for managing hypertension.
Did you receive good services?
They had trouble diagnosing the problem correctly. As they explained, the symptoms were not clear enough. However, I did feel better after several days.
Did the therapist inform your family? If so, did you agree to it?
Yes, I asked to contact my children and tell them what happened to me. I need my children to be around me to provide support, and I appreciate the effort.
Were you satisfied with the communication?
Yes, I mostly was, although there were cases when I would call for the nurse and no one would come. I understand, though, that the nurse was quite busy since there were seven of us and only one person to manage this.
Did you learn more about your condition?
I wouldn’t say I did. The doctor prescribed me several medications, and I asked the nurse for further clarifications – I needed to know more about taking some of them, but they hurried to let me go, and I had to leave. Maybe, my nephew can help me find some of the information.
That will be all, thank you. Thank you for the interview!
You are welcome!
What Went Well: Studying the Outcomes
The interview has shown that nurses manage dot meet the patient’s spiritual needs to a considerable degree. The fact that the nurses remembered the significance of family connectivity and contacted the patient’s children immediately shows that they are capable of locating the unique spiritual needs of the target population. Indeed, according to the narration provided by the interviewee, the support of her family members was critical to further recovery. Therefore, the understanding and readiness to create a positive environment for the patient indicate a high quality of care. In addition, it was important to make the patient believe the gravity of the problem and focus on patient education. The interviewee recognized the necessity to establish a strong contact with a nurse and acquiring the essential knowledge rather quickly, thus leading to a rather short interview.
Managing Challenges: Foreseeable Obstacles and Preventive Measures
There were, however, several issues that required addressing. For instance, the patient was rather critical of the idea of viewing a nurse as the person that is also in the process of educating themselves and acquiring new skills. In the interviewee’s perception, the image of a nurse was based primarily on the concept of a person that is fully knowledgeable and fully qualified. Therefore, it was difficult for the respondent to realize that a nurse also needs to learn new skills and facts regularly (lung et al., 2018). However, with further clarifications, the patient was ready to accept the specified fact (Pulvirenti, McMillan, & Lawn, 2014). Specifically, the respondent recognized the significance of new experiences for a nurse as the basis for developing a coherent dialogue with diverse patients.
Tool for Interventions: Encouraging Communication
The active promotion of the importance of multicultural; nurse-patient communication and the emphasis on communication between a patient and their family have to become two primary aspects of change-making in the context of modern nursing. Nevertheless, the tool for interventions includes the focus on patient education it is critical to keep the respondent not only aware of the health threats that they face but also the necessity to manage the specified threats independently. Therefore, a program aimed at improving the quality of patient-nurse communication should be seen as a possible tool for handling the change (Powers et al., 2017). Placing the emphasis on nurse-patient interactions and shifting the emphasis from the management of specific health concerns to meeting the spiritual requirements of a patient was rather difficult since the interviewee perceived nurses as extraordinarily qualified employees.
Illness, Stress, and Spiritual Concern: Establishing the Connection
The outcomes of the interview show that patients are in dire need of the setting in which their spiritual needs are acknowledged and met restively. Particularly the results of the interview indicate that patients are in direct need of education, which, in turn, also affects nurses significantly. As a result, a nurse can create a setting in which the active learning of crucial information becomes possible, in addition, a nurse can encourage a patient to get rid of health-associated myths that are harmful to their health status. By shifting the perspective toward active patient education, a nurse creates ample opportunities for meeting the spiritual needs of the target demographic and reducing the levels of stress among them. As a result, the nurse will be capable of meeting the culture-specific needs of patients and focus specifically on satisfying their spiritual needs as the path to a faster recovery.
References
lung, B., Delgado, V., Lazure, P., Murray, S., Sirnes, P. A., Rosenhek, R.,… Haude, M. (2018). Educational needs and application of guidelines in the management of patients with mitral regurgitation. A European mixed-methods study. European Heart Journal, 39(15), 1295-1303. Web.
Powers, M. A., Bardsley, J., Cypress, M., Duker, P., Funnell, M. M., Fischl, A. H.,… Vivian, E. (2017). Diabetes self-management education and support in type 2 diabetes: a joint position statement of the American Diabetes Association, the American Association of Diabetes Educators, and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The Diabetes Educator, 43(1), 40-53. Web.
Pulvirenti, M., McMillan, J., & Lawn, S. (2014). Empowerment, patient-centred care and self‐management. Health Expectations, 17(3), 303-310. Web.