The Importance Of Comfort Theory

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nursing influences such as Dretske, Murray, and Lipsey. Kolcaba (2003) also referenced governing bodies such as the American Nurses Association, International Council of Nurses, and the Health Resources and Services Administration. Kolcaba’s literature review for the concept analysis included several disciplines; nursing, medicine, psychology, psychiatry, ergonomics, and English (Kolcaba & Kolcaba, 1991). In 1992, Kolcaba completed another extensive literature review to incorporate holism into comfort theory. According to Research Gate (2015) Kolcaba’s research has been cited 547 times.
Comfort theory has been adopted by many in the health care field. Southern New Hampshire Medical Center adopted comfort theory when they successfully sought …show more content…

These assumptions are testable and useful. As a middle range theory, comfort theory has a limited number of propositions which reflect generalizations beyond specific clinical case studies. However, there are conflicting numbers of propositions in various texts. Kolcaba (2003) reported six propositions, McEwen and Willis (2014) reported eight propositions, and Smith and Parker (2015) divided the concepts into three major parts. The various numbers of propositions reflect variation in parsimonious expression of content rather than conflicting content as the major themes expressed remain consistent. The propositions listed on Kolcaba’s Comfort Line website are discussed in this paper as this author assumed Kolcaba’s website contained the most accurate and current information. Kolcaba (2010a) listed five propositions for comfort theory: Nurses identify the patient’s comfort needs unmet by existing support systems; nurses design interventions to address those needs; the intervening variables are taken into account to design the interventions and reasonable, mutually agreed upon outcomes; if enhanced comfort is achieved, patients are strengthened to engage in health seeking behaviors (HSBs) or a peaceful …show more content…

Comfort theory is comprehensive and understandable. Because Kolcaba (2003) believed consumers of theory must be able to understand and use the theory, the terminology specific to the theory is well described with minimal or uncomplicated definitions. All concepts are theoretically and operationally defined. The operational definitions allow for measurement of comfort and testing of hypotheses. While the definitions, derivations, assumptions, and propositions have evolved over the 20 years since the theory was introduced, they remain consistent. As previously mentioned, this author’s literature search revealed a discrepancy with some references referring to comfort theory and some referring to theory of comfort. Various texts also report conflicting numbers of propositions. Despite the inconsistency in reported numbers of propositions, the basic principles of the theory and propositions remain

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