This essay will explain what patient centred care is, how nurses use it in practice, the benefits of using it, and the barriers that need to be overcome to able to use it, and the key principles of patient centred care. It will explain how patient centred care enables nurses to communicate and engage with the patients in a more effective way, and how it helps understand the uniqueness of each patient, which helps professionals avoid ‘warehousing’ patients (treating them all the same). It will also demonstrate how this type of care can help maintain the dignity of patients when nurses carry out tasks such as personal care.
The Health Foundation describes patient centred care as being a type of health system where patients take control of their
An example of this in adult nursing could be in a hospital, during personal care. If a patient is unable to complete their own personal care and hygiene due to physical difficulties, such as if they have suffered a stroke in the past, nurses will help them to complete the care. Respect is used by the nurses when carrying out this task by ensuring they are speaking kindly to the patient, ensuring they feel comfortable, and by receiving permission before performing any task. By gaining the patients permission, they will feel that they have a higher level of control of the care, will feel more respected, and they will begin to develop a trusting relationship with the nurses.
Protecting a patients dignity means to respect their privacy, allow them to have control over their own decisions, and to not undermine them at any point. Patients dignity can be protected by nurses by ensuring they only carry out personal care when it is needed, and if possible, have the nurse completing the task be the same gender of the patient. This may make them feel more comfortable and less embarrassed.
Dignity and respect for patients is important in adult nursing because without it, it dehumanises them, and creates opportunities for abuse and ill treatment to occur. Lack of dignity and respect can also cause emotional problems for patients, as they are already in a vulnerable state.
Lack of respect and dignity
Although nursing is universally practiced, not all nurses values and morals are the same. Nurses and nursing students are usually put in situations where they must operate within an ethical structure which is either unfamiliar to their cultural criterion or those of the patients for whom they are taking care of. The most prominent values and morals of nurses are based on human dignity and benevolence. Human dignity is the main component that branches off into other values under caring for health and well-being. Trust, integrity, autonomy, and privacy are one of the many sub-values that fall under human dignity. It is important for the nurses to respect and understand the culture and beliefs of the patient without being judgmental or confrontational. The wellbeing of the patient is priority and so the nurses must focus on gaining the patients trust first by tending to their needs and exhibiting
The definition of person centred care is to include an individual receiving treatment in all aspects and decisions of both their healthcare treatment and recovery care plan. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (2008) state that nurses should ‘make the care of the people your first concern, treating them as individuals and respecting their dignity’. In 2012, the Scottish government introduced The 10 Essential Shared Capabilities (10 Escs) It has been created to promote and reflect on progressing policy and legislation to improve person centred care, values and beliefs in Scotland. Person centred care is a driving force not only within mental health nursing but all nursing. Whilst the service user and the nurse build a therapeutic relationship and develop a care plan, which is to the service users owns specific needs and wants. It ensures th...
According to Provision 1, “The principle of respect for persons extends to all individuals with whom the nurse interacts. The nurse maintains compassionate and caring relationships with colleagues and others
The provision is divided into several themes that demonstrates the nurse’s role in the practical setting as it relates to human rights. Provision 1 states, “The nurse practices with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth, and unique attributes of every person” (ANA American Nurses Association, 2015, p. 1). The first theme of provision 1 discusses the respect for human dignity of the patient. The ANA position statement: The Nurse’s Role in Ethics and Human Rights: Protecting and Promoting Individual Worth, Dignity, and Human Rights in Practice
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN, 2009) defines dignity as treating someone as you or your family would want to be treated, when they are feeling vulnerable. According to ( Matiti & Baillie,2011) in modern world the word dignity has lost its meaning, whether it is intentionally or unintentionally, nurses have become very mechanical, trying to give care for dummies rather than human beings, who have emotions, feelings and self-respect, and not realising what impact patients will have when nurses show this kind of attitude. Patient centred care is vital for all nurses, without, discriminating against colour, gender, race, and religious beliefs. Following the code of conduct which is expected of the nurse, working according to the needs of the patients, being a good listener and respecting them. When the nurse shows dignity and respect, she/he tends to develop a therapeutic relationship with patient which in turn results in good health and rehabilitation (NMC, 2008).
Nurses everywhere face problems and challenges in practice. Most of the challenges occur due to a struggle with the use of ethical principles in patient care. Ethical principles are “basic and obvious moral truths that guide deliberation and action,” (Burkhardt, Nathaniel, 2014). Ethical principles that are used in nursing practice include autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, veracity, confidentiality, justice, and fidelity. These challenges not only affect them, but the quality of care they provide as well. According to the article, some of the most frequently occurring and most stressful ethical issues were protecting patient rights, autonomy and informed consent to treatment, staffing problems, advanced care planning, and surrogate decision making (Ulrich et. al, 2013). The ethical issue of inadequate staffing conflicts with the principle of non-maleficence.
In contemporary nursing practice, nurses need to integrate scientific knowledge and nursing theories prior to providing optimal health care. Nursing theories guide nurses to treat clients in a supportive and dignified manner through client centred approaches. However, it is challenge for nurses to practice client centred care in daily realities due to heavy workloads. In order to assist nurses to decrease the gap between ideal and real practice, Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) develops Best Practice Guideline of Client-centred-care (Neligan, Grinspun, JonasSimpson, McConnell, Peter, Pilkington, et al., 2002). This guideline offers values and beliefs as foundation of client-centred care, and the core processes of client-centred care can facilitate provision of optimal nursing care. These four core processes of client-centred care include identifying concerns, making decisions, caring and service, and evaluating outcomes. According to RNAO (2006), ongoing dialogue with clients and self-reflection are essential for nurses to develop their nursing skills and knowledge on client-centred care. As a nursing student, I reflected on written transcripts of interactions between patients and me, so that I could gain insights into client-centred care for further improvement. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to discuss importance of the core processes of client-centred care in nursing practice through identifying and critiquing blocks to conversation. Based on the guideline of RNAO (2006), respect, human dignity, clients are experts for their own lives, responsiveness and universal access will be elaborated in each core process of client-centre care as reflecting on three dialogues with patients.
Nowadays the concept of patient-centeredness plays an important role in high-quality health care. Patient-centeredness joins the care the patient is getting together with the care that the patient is willing to receive, giving therefore the patient a certain ethical authority. This particular approach to practice is built upon important concepts such as patient’s preferences respect, whole-person knowledge and creating an effective relationship between the patient and the clinician. These particular concepts might vary taking in consideration the condition of the patient and the patient himself. Patient-centeredness is also known as patient centered care. [1] [2]
This study showed that nurses can communicate well when a patient-center approach is used. There is need within health care for nurses to recognize that patients are more than a task that needs to be completed. That the patient themselves are an important element in their own care. By educating and giving nurses the evidence-based research available they can fill this gap. Continued research needs to be conducted on patient’s experiences of how nurses communicate. Showing us the behaviors that patients place high values on. Thus enabling nurses to use a patient-centered
Nursing should focus on patient and family centered care, with nurses being the patient advocate for the care the patient receives. Patient and family centered care implies family participation. This type of care involves patients and their families in their health care treatments and decisions. I believe that it is important to incorporate this kind of care at Orange Regional Medical Center (ORMC) because it can ensure that we are meeting the patient’s physical, emotional, and spiritual needs through their hospitalization.
The first part of this is respect for human dignity which is the need for and right to health care is universal, transcending all differences (Code, 2015). The second part of the first provision is about relationships with patients. Nurses set up relationships of trust and provide nursing services according to need, setting aside any bias or prejudice (Code, 2015). When a patient choices are risky, nurses have to discuss the behavior and offer opportunities to change the behavior to eradicate the risk (Code, 2015). The third part of the first provision is about the nature of health. Nurses should respect the dignity and rights of all human beings regardless of the factors contributing to the person’s health status (Code, 2015). The fourth part of the first provision is the right to self-determination. Patients have the moral and legal right to decide what will happen with and to their own person (Code, 2015). The fifth and last part of the first provision is the relationship with colleagues and others. This part is about respect for persons extends to all people with whom the nurse interacts (Codes,
Person Centred Care (PCC) is an important integrity in care, it develops patient- nurse relationship, enables increase in patient’s healthcare, development and satisfaction in the care provided. Research proves that modern day health care has incorporated the notion of patient-centred practise and empowerment regardless substantial encounters which hinders carrying out PCC in clinical practice (Ekman et al, 2011). To achieve a subsequent experience for a patient, routines need to be established to safeguard, initiate and incorporate consistency in practice. So, this essay will explore the definition of PCC, discuss four examples in context to PCC such as Communication, Confidentiality, Choice, and treating patients with dignity and respect.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, dignity is “The state or quality of being worthy of honour or respect.” (Oxford Dictionary, 2017). Living a life of dignity is individual to each person, but regardless of who they are, or what illness they may be suffering from, they deserve dignity and respect in the way that they are cared for. The cornerstone of nursing care is providing dignity to our patients. The issue can arise when a patient chooses to end their life versus letting the disease or aging process take its natural course, and the individual beliefs that nurses feel about this very difficult topic.
Ernst (2013) further points out that SDM helps to develop trust between patients and their health care providers, as it encourages physicians to engage and communicate with their patients more effectively. It is reasonable to conclude that this could result in a higher quality of care by the physician and better health outcomes for the patient since both patient and physician would have a better understanding of the patient’s situation. A report by Saskatchewan Health Quality Council (2010) points to a study which found that “patient perceptions of receiving more patient-centred care were associated with better recovery and emotional health” (p. 10).
Brown et al (2017) document dignity was commonly understood as independence, privacy, comfort and care, individuality, respect, communication, physical appearance and being seen as human. To successfully deliver the dignity care to end of life patient, it requires that nurses need to obey the 6Cs of nursing (care, compassion, competence, communicate, courage and commitment) in order to the standard care not fall behind (DH, 2012). By following NMC code (2015) we are now taking forward this work in dignity to explore how to promote dignity in routine care. Then the further researcher should explore whether Dignity Therapy can be routine intervention and integrated into day to day practice of palliative care team or end of life care team.