The Nurse-Client Negotiations Model - Assignment Example

I chose this model because it recognizes discrepancies that exist between notions of the nurse and client about health, illness, and treatments. This model attempts to bridge the gap between the scientific perspectives of the nurse and the popular perspectives of the client. Fundamental to understanding this model, one must recognize that most social systems include three structural arena of health care within which sickness is reacted to and experienced. The concept of popular, professional, and folk arenas is used to compare medical systems as cultural systems.

Each arena or domain possesses its own model for explaining health and illness (Kleinman, 1978). This arena comprises the family context of sickness and care, including the social network and community perspective. In both Western and non-Western societies, approximately seventy percent to ninety percent of sickness is managed solely within this domain. The nurse-client negotiations model serves as a framework to attend to the culture of the nurse as well as the culture of the client. In addition to the professional culture, each nurse has his or her own personal beliefs and values, which may operate without the nurse being fully aware of them.

These beliefs and values may influence nurse's interactions with patients and families. Each arena (sector) in the model can be viewed as a social cultural system with its own values, norms of behavior, beliefs, and ways of explaining health and illness. Explanations of the same phenomena may yield different interpretations based on the cultural perspective of the layperson or the professional. Anderson (1987) provided examples of different perspectives of the same intervention: Putting lightweight bedclothes on a patient may be interpreted by family members as placing their loved one at risk for "getting a chill," whereas the nurse will use this technique to prevent or reduce a fever; a Jehovah's Witness family considers a blood transfusion for their child as contamination of the child's body, whereas the nurse and other healthcare team members believe a transfusion is a lifesaving treatment.

Important Aspect The important aspect of this model is that it can open lines of communication between the nurse and the patient/family. It helps each understand how the other interprets or values a problem or practice such that they respect one another's goals.Negotiations Negotiation implies a mutual exchange of information between the nurse and client. The nurse should begin negotiation by learning from the client' s about their understanding of their situation, their interpretations of illness and symptoms, the symbolic meaning they attach to an event, and their notions about treatment.

Contingency contracting is a form of negotiation used in nursing in which negotiations focus on the values of goods to be forgone and