Introduction
Caring is essential in nursing practice because it helps with the healing process. It is vital to acknowledge that nurses often show empathy, compassion, and emotional support toward their parents. Notably, caring can be done in different ways, including talking to patient and support them either physically or emotionally. Over the years, caring has been found to help patients deal with tough recovery times since nurses are often compassionate with the patients and assure them that their quality of life will improve with the treatment regimen administered. Remarkably, for registered nurses and clinicians to effectively care for patients, they have to remain committed to their work, exhibit high levels of competence, and be confident about their abilities to help their patients heal. This paper discusses the importance of caring in nursing practice, empathy as a major component of caring, and how caring for critically ill patients may make nurses be emotionally involved.
Body
Importance of caring for patients
One of the benefits of caring for patients is that it brings about patient change. It is vital to acknowledge that caring is often associated with empathy, which enables registered nurses and other health professionals to understand the experiences and feelings of the patients. Understanding a patient’s experience and feelings is essential as it guarantees emotional support for the patient, and this often leads to a quick recovery. Additionally, caring for patients results in increased patient satisfaction (Lamiani et al., 2020). From personal experience, I have witnessed many patients gifting their nurses for the excellent care they provided, and this can only mean that they were satisfied with the quality of care. It is worth noting that caring often makes patients to feel loved and cared for, and this significantly improves their wellbeing. Patient satisfaction mostly revolves around the type of treatment they are accorded by nurses in healthcare facilities.
Also, caring for patients has been associated with improved job satisfaction of nurses and other healthcare professionals. Nurses who spend more time with patients listening to their problems often feel better when their patients appreciate them for the excellent care they gave them. In most cases, job satisfaction is mistaken to revolve around the benefits nurses receive, including high salaries but it is all about being able to help patients to make their lives better (Lamiani et al., 2020). It is the responsibility of nurses to use their clinical expertise to provide quality care to patients to achieve better patient outcomes. Notably, patients often come from different cultural backgrounds, and this necessitates that nurses should be culturally competent to understand the varying needs of patients to provide a holistic care, which can guarantee better outcomes.
Emotional involvement of nurses when caring for critically ill patients
Nurses and other healthcare professionals working in critical care settings are often exposed to challenging clinical situations. Frequent interaction with such challenging situations may lead to emotional involvement of nurses. Also, nurses may become fearful of becoming overwhelmed by the suffering of their patients. It is vital to acknowledge that caring for patients involves empathy, which requires a nurse to feel the perspective of their patient, although there are limitations since the nurse should not project his/her emotions onto the patient (Lamiani et al., 2020). Human beings, including nurses have emotions, and such emotions may affect them when providing care to patients. From a professional experience, I have witnessed cases where nurses become vulnerable to traumatic stress because of their empathetic nature toward patients.
Empathy as a major component of caring
A critical examination of the article indicates that empathy is a major component of caring in nursing practice. It is vital to acknowledge that empathy is multidimensional construct which is composed of affective and cognitive aspects. Notably, the affective dimension mainly deals with the ability of nurses to feel the emotions of the patients. The cognitive dimension mainly refers to the intellectual ability to understand the needs of the patients, including their inner frame of reference. According to the article, empathy is beneficial for both patients and registered nurses in healthcare facilities (Lamiani et al., 2020). Remarkably, empathy of nurses is often related to better patient outcomes, especially when treating critically ill patients. In other cases, empathy of nurses promotes self-efficacy, which is crucial for better patient outcomes. With empathy, nurses often feel that they possess the necessary knowledge and skills to deliver the best care to patients, and achieve better patient outcomes.
Empathy of nurses who work in critical care settings may be at risk factor for their psychological and occupational wellbeing. It is vital to acknowledge that caring for critical ill patients may be associated with moral distress, and this may negatively affect the wellbeing of nurses (Lamiani et al., 2020). A good example of a situation where a nurse may be distressed when caring for a patient is when he/she cannot carry out what they believe is ethically appropriate to improve the quality of life of a patient. It is vital to acknowledge that distressed nurses may find it difficult to care for their patients because of low morale in the workplace.
Reflection
From my perspective, caring for patients in nursing practice is essential. One of the reasons why caring for patients is crucial is because it improves patient outcomes. It is vital to acknowledge that patients who are well cared for often recover faster. Notably, caring in nursing practice entails numerous activities, such as physical and emotional support. Additionally, I believe that empathy is a vital aspect of caring that should not be ignored since it allows nurses to feel the pain and suffering of their parents. Empathy also makes it possible for nurses to attain job satisfaction, which is essential in motivating them to continue working diligently to improve the quality of life of patients. I believe that nurses face numerous challenges when providing care to patients. One of the problems associated with empathy is emotional involvement, which significantly affects the wellbeing of registered nurses. In many cases, emotional involvement has resulted in traumatic stress among nurses making it difficult for them to provide excellent care to patients.
Conclusion
Caring for patients is an aspect in nursing practice that helps in achieving better patient outcomes. It is vital to acknowledge that caring can be in the form of physical and emotional support. Nurses often strive to ensure that their patients receive the best care. Also, caring for patients often lead to faster healing process, which helps in reducing the duration of pain and suffering for patients. Notably, empathy is a major aspect of caring that enables nurses to feel the pain and suffering of their patients. With empathy nurses have the ability to understand the needs of their patients, and provide quality care to improve their conditions. Remarkably, there are issues associated with caring, including emotional involvement, which negatively affects nurses. Precisely, nurses have suffered from traumatic stress due to emotional involvement, which affects their performance at work. Overall, nurses should strive to provide a holistic care to patients to improve their quality of life.
Reference
Lamiani, G., Dordoni, P., Vegni, E., & Barajon, I. (2020). Caring for critically ill patients: Clinicians’ empathy promotes job satisfaction and does not predict moral distress. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02902
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