Subject(s)
Biological Psychiatry , Depressive Disorder/therapy , Evidence-Based Practice , Philosophy, Medical , Philosophy, Nursing , Psychiatric Nursing , Antidepressive Agents/therapeutic use , Biological Psychiatry/trends , Depressive Disorder/epidemiology , Drug Utilization/trends , Evidence-Based Practice/trends , Holistic Health , Humans , Psychiatric Nursing/trendsABSTRACT
AIMS: This paper discusses the values of therapeutic listening and ways that emotional difficulties can impact palliative nurses' abilities to provide psychological care. BACKGROUND: Recent literature indicates that providing psychological care can burden some healthcare professionals including nurses; who may lack the necessary competencies or organizational resources to carry out their roles. EVALUATION: References drawn from the databases: all EBM reviews, British Nursing INDEX, CINAHL, PSYCH INFO and MEDLINE and EMBASE are discussed. KEY ISSUES: Psychological care is considered critical to providing holistic care. Yet the literature suggests engaging in such work makes emotional demands on the professionals attempting to carry it out and is associated with psychological difficulties including burnout. CONCLUSION: Clinical supervision can help reduce the distress caused by emotionally charged situations. Thoughtful clinical supervision can also contribute to safe and effective health care. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Nursing would benefit from understanding more about the effects on healthcare professionals of repeated exposure to emotionally charged situations and benefits that clinical supervision can offer to health care.
Subject(s)
Adaptation, Psychological , Nurse-Patient Relations , Patient Care/psychology , Speech , Stress, Psychological/psychology , Anxiety/psychology , Clinical Competence , Emotions , Holistic Nursing , HumansABSTRACT
This article is the third in a series of six that explores the nature of hope, reviews the existing theoretical and empirical work in several discrete areas of nursing, and provides case studies to illustrate the role that hope plays in clinical situations. This article focuses on hope within the specialty area of palliative care nursing. Nurse researchers have been instrumental in our current early understandings of hope in palliative care. Studies of hope in palliative care, over the past decades, have focused primarily on those individuals in the advanced stages of cancer and the human immunodeficiency virus. Studies using quantitative methodology have focused on exploring hope levels across the dying trajectory and the relationship between hope and other psychosocial variables while those using qualitative methodology have focused on the meaning of hope and elucidating how terminally ill individual maintain and engender their hope. Research supports that the clinician is an instrument through which hope can be assessed and administered. There is a need for further rigorous investigation of the role of hope during the terminal phase of an illness with specific emphasis on capturing the intangible inner experiences of hope and on the validation of interventions/strategies that develop and maintain hope for both the terminally ill person and his/her family caregivers and significant others.