Why is holistic nursing important




















Care philosophies. Holistic medicine focuses on the connectedness of mind, body, and spirit; conventional medicine tends to view these aspects of the person in more compartmentalized terms.

Care methodologies. Holistic medicine offers self-help through lifestyle changes. By contrast, conventional medicine seeks to eliminate physical symptoms, often through surgery or pharmaceuticals. Focus of primary and secondary treatment strategies. Get More Info. Discover Regis. This will only take a minute. What degree program are you most interested in? Next Step We value your privacy. What DNP Program are you interested in? What option are you most interested in?

Master of Health Administration. Health Policy and Management. What option are you interested in? Master of Social Work. Non-degree Certificate , Certification-Seeking Applicants. What track are you interested in? Bridge Track. Ironically, the latter is more popular with the managers. Routine tasks are considered as evaluation criteria.

But data show that the professional environment in Iranian hospitals lacks orientation programs for novice nurses and that most of the managers lack competence for their positions. It was very difficult for me.

I was under pressure and lost my motivation to continue my profession, provide proper care and pay attention to the patients and their needs. Participant 7. However, the participants declared that upon entering the clinical environment, they were faced with the limited conformity of their environment with professional norms. Disregard for the principles of proper nursing forms a sub-category of this phenomenon.

The participants stated that upon embarking on their careers, they were faced with a prevalent disregard for the principles of proper nursing, at both the professional and ethical level. Attention to professional principles is the prerequisite of holistic care; but in most cases they are ignored. To quote a participant:. When I started, I saw that many of the points that were stressed during our education were simply ignored here. Many novice nurses would adopt the same wrong practices and ignore the professional principles; the standards and techniques were pushed aside and the patients forgotten.

Disregard for ethical matters in nursing is another component of negligence of proper nursing principles. Many nurses are guilty of such disregard and ignore their patients and their various needs. In this regard, one of the participants stated that:. They would close the doors and drink tea and chat away! It was not easy to act morally under those circumstances: You could be ostracized. It was like swimming against the current. Unfortunately, many of my friends would imitate them, too, and were totally indifferent to the patients and their needs, as if they were machines.

Motivational factors play an important role in encouraging nurses to provide holistic care as well as facilitating such provision. Motivational factors include personality traits, personal experiences of hospitalization, and input sources. One of the participants pointed out that:. They also confide in me, which lets me know about and satisfy many of their needs. Being sensitive and compassionate contributes to providing holistic care on the part of nurses.

I help my family too and enjoy being a comfort. That's why I feel good when my patients are satisfied. The participants stated that the unpleasant experience influenced their perception of patients and their various needs.

One of the participants stated that:. I had to undergo cholecystectomy last year. Now I realize how painful an operation can be. I understand now what a patient goes through. Participant 1. Another participant pointed out that after the experience of the hospitalization of a family member; she began to view holistic care in a different light:.

He had to undergo a heart surgery and we were worried to death. I was waiting nervously outside the operation room, but the ICU nursing staff did not treat me well. I was totally anxious; now I understand patients and their families better. I put myself in their shoes and that makes me feel closer to them. This can help one understand patients and their multiple dimensions a lot better. Regarding religiousness, one of the participants stated:.

My religious beliefs help me to consider a patient's various needs despite the problems at work. I believe God has given me the power to give care to my patients; this idea gives me more energy for a better caring for the patients. The same participant mentioned that religiousness can lead to recognition of the greater effectiveness of meeting a patient's whole needs simultaneously rather than separately:.

By satisfying their needs and witnessing the effect of that on their recovery, I now see every patient as a whole with a number of needs all of which should be taken care of as a whole, and not individually, to quicken treatment. My beliefs make me attend to the different needs of the patients. Participant 4. The manner in which one has been reared has an important impact on the formation of these beliefs.

My father usually advised me to view the patients as my own family and provide the best possible caring for them and attend to all their needs. Commitment, which can increase during work, is usually effective before entering the nursing profession; it is considered as a component of input sources that plays a key role in the formation of holistic care.

One of the nurses remarked:. I try to perform my duties in the best way. I think our duty is not limited to some routine tasks. Addressing all of the needs of my patients is my duty as a nurse and I try to resolve their entire problems. When I resolve them, I feel good and my interest in my profession increases. The results of the study show that factors that affect holistic care provision the most are the educational structure, professional environment, and motivational factors.

Ahmadi et al. The content of educational programs is not based on the philosophy of holistic care. Revising nursing lessons seems to be required for the inculcation of holistic care in nursing students. Strandberg has also suggested this matter in his study. However, according to the findings of this study, most nurses believe that their main concern in their courses has been with becoming competent in doing routine tasks and that they had little opportunity to consider the other needs of patients.

Meleis and Davies referred to this issue and emphasized its importance. King and Gates, also, stress the role of practical models, teaching methods, and explaining the philosophy of holistic care in the formation of holistic care King and Gates, Professional environment, which consists of workload, management, and the limited conformity of the clinical environment with professional norms, can affect the formation of holistic care and act as a barrier or facilitator to it.

When unsuitable, these components are identified as barriers to holistic care provision in this study. Workload is one of the aspects of practice in nursing environments which affects the quality of caring. The results of this study show that nursing management is inefficient and that the nurses in this study were dissatisfied with the style of management, and do not have any orientation programs.

The above-mentioned issues play an important role in the formation of holistic care and, when suitable, can enhance the provision of this mode of caring by creating motivation in nurses and increasing their knowledge. Strindberg's study in Sweden confirms this fact and emphasizes the role of management in promoting holistic care. Various studies—e. Silva,[ 29 ] Abedi[ 30 ] and Valdez[ 31 ]—recognize the limited conformity of the clinical environment with professional norms as a big challenge which most novice nurses encounter.

Personality traits play a major role in expanding relationship with patients, identifying their various needs and developing holistic perception on the part of nurses. As the most important internal factor influencing motivation, personality traits are influential in achieving success at college and at work by creating intimacy, commitment and conscientiousness.

The same studies reveal that these nurses, compared to their colleagues, are not only more dependable, intelligent, flexible, and conscientious, but also more highly motivated. To put it in simple words, the practice focuses on healing the person through the unity of mind, body, environment, spirit and emotion.

The nurses use their knowledge and therapeutic skills to take care of their patients. With this belief, holistic nurses use alternative or complementary modalities. In order to do that, they offer religious, cultural, or spiritual methods too. Patients need to know that their nurses care for them, not just as their patients but on a deep psychological level. Holistic nurses believe that their wards will respond well to their treatments if their surroundings are positively charged.

Some patients are so far gone in their illness that they entirely depend on their nurses. At times, it becomes hard to maintain their dignity when they rely on nurses to help them with even the smallest things.

Western medicine focuses on the treatment of illness and disease using drugs, radiation or surgery. Integrative medicine incorporates additional therapies to supplement mainstream practices.

According to Registered Nursing , the following represent several common holistic care therapies:. Holistic care is a value-based approach to health care that focuses on the importance of dignity and respect in the act of administering care. The Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine AIHM outlined the core principles of holistic care that simplify the values surrounding integrative medicine:.

A holistic nurse has a responsibility to apply the principles of holistic care to patients within their practice. A holistic nurse may administer the same health care services as a traditional RN, but they differ in their method of delivery. Holistic nurses deliver care in the following ways:. The history of holistic care illustrates the progression of health care and the importance of education and advocacy in nursing. Nurses should understand the evolution of health care practices so they can contribute to a better future.

In prehistoric times, medical traditions relied on plants, herbs and patient-centered experiences to manage health. In the early days of medicine, physical ailments were almost exclusively diagnosed and treated with spiritual interpretations.

This began to change in BCE when the father of Western medicine, Hippocrates, studied anatomy and physiology to explain the origin of diseases. In the early s, health care researchers and physicians primarily viewed the human body as a machine and observed organs and biological systems as cogs in this machine.

Medicine became largely empirical, evidence-informed and scientific but neglected the emotional, spiritual and psychological facets of health care.



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