Comfort Contract Design
ANSWER
Creating a Comfort Contract: Using the Theory of Comfort in Nursing Practice
The notion of comfort was established in the 1990s by Katherine Kolcaba. Kolcaba defined comfort as an intervention that might be utilized to alleviate patients’ suffering and improve their overall feeling of well-being. The notion arose in reaction to the changing healthcare environment and the necessity for nurses to emphasize holistic care that covers patients’ physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs.
The idea of comfort suggests that comfort is a comprehensive experience that includes physical, psychological, social, and spiritual elements. When patients reach comfort when they attain a sensation of alleviation, ease, and transcendence in their bodily, psychological, social, and spiritual states. According to Kolcaba’s thesis, the three components of comfort are alleviation, ease, and transcendence.
Theory Description: Main Components and Their Relationships:
According to the philosophy of comfort, the purpose of nursing care is to provide patients with comfort. Several treatments produce the three components of comfort, alleviation, ease, and transcendence. Interventions that treat patients’ bodily discomforts, such as pain, nausea, and exhaustion, provide relief. Interventions that target patients’ psychological discomforts, such as worry, fear, and sadness, help to alleviate symptoms. Transcendence is attained by therapies that address spiritual discomforts in patients, such as a loss of meaning and purpose.
The Theory of Comfort in Research: The theory of comfort has been used in many research projects to evaluate its usefulness in enhancing patients’ comfort and well-being. Massage, music therapy, and relaxation methods have been demonstrated in studies to alleviate patients’ physical discomforts while also improving their psychological and spiritual well-being. The idea has also been utilized to create tools to assess patients’ comfort levels and the efficacy of comfort therapies.
Empirical Testing Instruments: The Kolcaba Comfort Questionnaire frequently measures patients’ comfort levels. The questionnaire evaluates the success of comfort therapies by assessing patients’ physical, psychological, social, and spiritual comfort levels. Visual analog scales, numeric rating scales, and the McGill Pain Questionnaire are other tools utilized in empirically testing comfort measures.
Creating a Comfort Contract: In the context of postsurgical care, a comfort contract may be established to match patients’ expectations about their comfort levels and identify persistent discomforts and home-based strategies used for alleviation. To guarantee that the actions described are safe and successful, the contract might be written in consultation with patients, their surrogates, and nursing personnel. The contract may be used to direct nursing care and guarantee that patients’ comfort requirements are satisfied as they recover.
The idea of comfort offers a comprehensive paradigm for nursing care that covers patients’ physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs. Comfort therapies have been found to reduce patients’ pain and promote their well-being. The Comfort Questionnaire is a frequently used tool for assessing patients’ comfort levels. Additional instruments, such as visual analog scales and numeric rating scales, are used to assess the efficacy of comfort therapies. A comfort contract may be created to match patients’ expectations about their degree of comfort and to direct nursing care throughout the recovery phase.
QUESTION
Week 13(comfort)
Evidence suggests that patients do better when their expectations about specific benefits of nursing care are discussed and met. Design a “comfort contract” whereby patients or their surrogates designate an expected level of postsurgical overall comfort, and also where they can specify chronic discomforts and interventions that they use at home for relief.
Topics
· Historical Background
· Definition of Theory Concepts
· Description of Theory: Major Components and Their Relationships
· Research Application for the Theory of Comfort
· Instruments Used in Empirical Testing
· Summary
Weekly Objectives
By the end of this lesson, the learner will:
· Research applications for the theory of comfort
· Discuss instruments used in empirical testing for “comfort”
Student Learning Outcomes (Outcomes 3 & 5)
After completing this course, the learner should be able to:
· Examine the influence that nursing models and theories have upon research and practice.
· Apply nursing theory or theories to nursing research.
End of Program Outcomes:
· Create effective interdisciplinary organizational and systems leadership in the care of clients in diverse healthcare settings.
· Evaluate the effectiveness of clinical prevention interventions that affect individual and population-based health outcomes, perform risk assessments, and design plans or programs of care
· Relate knowledge of illness and disease management to providing evidence-based care to clients, communities, and vulnerable populations in an evolving healthcare delivery system.