The metaparadigm of nursing is characterized by nursing, person, health, and environment. My nursing philosophy is providing optimal holistic care to every patient, showing compassion, and being empathetic and culturally sensitive. It is important to me that I advocate for my patients, treat everyone with respect and dignity, and coordinate care based on each patient’s needs and cultural background.
My perspective of the nursing metaparadigm of person is that I believe that nursing is a profession where we deal with people. We focus on providing care not only to patients that we encounter but also to patient families’ communities and the people we surround ourselves with. We focus on providing care to everyone, which includes being respectful, caring, and coordinating care based on the person’s values and cultural needs. According to Jean Watson’s theory of human care, the human being has specific requirements that need to be valued, cared for, respected, nurtured, understood, and assisted (Watson’s Philosophy and Science of Caring, 2020).
In the profession of nursing, we integrated Jean Watson’s theory into our practice when providing patient-centric care. We do not focus only on a person’s sickness but on every aspect of their being; we ensure each person’s needs and well-being are met. As a nurse, we sometimes must be a therapy where we must listen to our patient, makes sure they are understood, and advocate for their autonomy. Each person is different but what remains the same for everyone is everyone deserves to be treated equally with respect, compassion, and dignity.
The second component of the metaparadigm of nursing is health. I believe that health is the person’s overall well-being, which includes physical, mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual wellness. A patient’s health goes beyond just focusing on the person’s illness. It also requires both body and mind to be at peace for oneself to be truly healthy. To me, a person’s physical health does not mean a person needs to be physically whole without limitation but to be at the highest form where he or she can do things independently.
Environmental factors play a significant role in nursing because they partially influence a person’s health, resulting from their environment. I believe the food we put in our bodies, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the state of our environment can contribute to whether a person’s health improves or takes a turn for the worst. According to Florence Nightingale’s environmental theory, it is not healthy for a patient to constantly breathe in and out of their air. They would become or remain sick and cause re-infection. For a person to achieve optimal health, the environment needs to be appropriately ventilated, noise should be kept at a minimum, and the room should remain clean and sanitized (Riegel, 2021).
A nurse’s role for a patient is to create an environment to improve conditions for the patient and allow healing to occur not only for the body but also for the person’s mental state. For example, at my job, when a new admission comes in, and the patient is unique to the environment, it is my job as the nurse to make sure the patient is comfortable and feels secure. If they are restless and their needs are not met, they become resistant to care, hindering them from reaching their maximum health and causing more extended rehab stay. For every human, whether they are patient or not, the environment determines their quality of life.
Nurse’s Psychology Integrated to Working with Geriatric Patients
Gerontological care is often considered as a social problem. That is why the work of nurses in this field should be based on a clear philosophy. The mentioned above principles of a nurse’s philosophy can be integrated into practice. However, there are various specific geriatric care traits that should be addressed.
When organizing care for elderly patients, much attention should be paid to deontological aspects since elderly and senile patients, as a rule, have a hard time enduring the breaking of the usual stereotype and have difficulty adapting to the new hospital environment. Initially, deontology was the doctrine of the problems of morality and ethics, a section of ethics. Subsequently, science has narrowed down to characterizing the difficulties of human duty, considering duty as an internal experience of compulsion given by ethical values. In an even narrower sense, deontology was designated as a science that explicitly studies medical ethics, rules, and norms for the interaction of a medical worker with colleagues and a patient.
When working with the elderly, the nurse must know the psychological characteristics of the geriatric patient. Working with the elderly requires a lot of patience, forbearance, a sense of humor, and the art of communication. A sense of respect, often admiration for his life history, usually dramatically increases the nurse’s credibility and her authority as a specialist. Older people often have memory impairments. When caring for such patients, it is necessary to be discreet and attentive, constantly reminding them of the time to take medications and carry out a particular procedure. An important role is played in caring for elderly patients by creating an optimal medical and protective regimen. Elderly patients often have sleep disturbances. Psychotherapy and psychohygiene play an essential role in the revitalization process. Older adults need to constantly train their intellectual abilities through various types of mental stress.
In order to provide appropriate assistance to older people at an outpatient appointment, when visiting at home or in a hospital, medical personnel must not only distinguish with a sufficient degree of confidence purely age-related changes in the structure and function of an aging person from those caused by illness and requiring preventive and therapeutic measures but also be familiar with the psychology of an aging person, evaluate it in your patient, know his place in the social environment.
The main principle of care is respect for the patient’s personality and acceptance of character’s peculiar features, with all physical and mental shortcomings, irritability, talkativeness, and in many cases, dementia. Medical personnel should be aware that the deficiencies with which the patient is admitted to a medical institution, in most cases, are a manifestation of the disease and not old age, and appropriate care and treatment can improve the condition of patients and restore their health. Therefore, the mentioned experiences show that psychology in nursing practices ensures a higher quality of care. The major principle includes the provision of double-aspected care. The first is guaranteeing efficient conditions for the treatment of the patient, while the second consists of psychological and mental support. Working with the elderly requires a lot of patience, forbearance, a sense of humor, and the art of communication.
The well-defined philosophy, which includes a sense of respect, and often admiration for his life history, usually dramatically increase the nurse’s credibility as a specialist helping to provide more qualitative care.
References
Riegel, F. (2021). Florence Nightingale’s theory and her contributions to holistic critical thinking in nursing. Web.
Watson’s philosophy and science of caring. (2020). Nursing Theory. Web.