Nursing Theory and Rehabilitation - Assignment Example

? Application of Nursing Theory Application of Nursing Theory Part I: Introduction Nursing theories offer a framework which nurses and nursing practice professionals can use to help in improving the service to their patients (Roberts, 2013). Nursing professionals use nursing theories, whether grounded, middle range or practice level theories, as a way to bring efficacy in their practice. Theories help the professionals to be able to achieve what they do in a better way. Nursing theories are not used as a solution themselves but are useful in making the treatment process much easier, efficient and effective. As a result, nurses often turn to nursing theory in order to make sure that they are able to help the patient in the best possible way. Part II: The Problem Nursing theory and Rehabilitation Around the world, the issue of rehabilitation is becoming a very big issue which many nursing centres have to deal with. The number of individuals who need to be rehabilitated every year is increasing every year. And so has the severity of the cases because people are now indulging more deeply in harmful drugs and alcohol. Rehabilitation is becoming an issue and many nursing professionals working in rehabilitation centres are finding it harder to be able to treat the individuals (Strong, 2013). As a result, there is an increasing need for all the stake holders to come together and develop a solution. In the United States, the problem of ineffective rehabilitation is being blamed on so many stakeholders including the following; Policy makers have been accused of making ineffective and irreverent healthcare policies which make it harder for rehabilitation of addicts to be effective. Policy makers are accused of failing to recognize addiction as a healthcare problem and therefore this offers very little government help for addicts, thus leaving them to have to pay the expensive costs of rehabilitation which are in often cases prohibitive and thus always leads to the patient relapsing to their vices. Justice system is also accused of failing to recognize addicts as patients and in most cases sends them to prison instead to rehabilitation centres. For instance, most addicts who are arrested with drugs are sentenced to prison terms where they end up using these drugs even more because they are readily available in the prison environment. However, it is the nursing professionals in the rehabilitation centres who end up getting the largest blame especially when they are not able to rehabilitate individuals who are struggling with addiction (Strong, 2013). Needless to say, there needs an overhauling of the rehabilitation process in order to help the individuals who find themselves in this deadly health problem to be able to live life again. While the policy makers and the justice system have their shares to do, the nurses should use the available resources in order to be able to help these patients and give their lives back to them. To be able to solve this issue, it will be necessary to be able to come up with ways to handle as many rehabilitation patients as possible within the limited resources available for nurses. The nurses will need to know how to deal with the patients and help them to overcome their issues without failing. Part III: Using Nursing theory to address the problem Self-care deficit nursing theory (Orem B Model of Nursing) The self-care deficit nursing theory was developed by Dorothea Orem between 1959 and 2001 and is postulated upon the argument that patients are more likely to get their health back if they are allowed to participate in their own healthcare. This theory is important in the treatment of rehabilitation patients due to the very nature of these patients. More than any other type of patients, a rehabilitation patient needs to relearn how to depend on himself and become self efficacious. Failing to restore this ability in the patient will also mean that the patient will relapse back to their old habit (Johnson & Roberson, 2012). Unlike most healthcare issues that nurses have to ever treat, addiction patients usually have social problems and while addiction may have a physiological aspect of it, the biggest problems with it is the psychological problem leading to the patient being unable to take control of their lives. Helping the patient to overcome the chemical addiction will not help until and unless the patient achieves self control through self efficacy. To understand why this is necessary, it is best to understand that over fifty percent of the addiction patients who are treated in rehabilitation centres are never willing to be in the treatment process. Most of these patients are people in self denial and always pretend that they don’t need the help. Most of them are brought to the rehabilitation clinics by relatives and friends. In light of these factors combined together, it is best for the nurses to completely understand the need to apply the self-care deficit nursing theory when treating these patients and make sure that these patients will be able to recognise their health issues and start working towards it. Strategy for implementing the self-care deficit nursing theory Implementing the self-care deficit nursing theory, or Orem’s Model as it has been referred to, in many instances can be a big challenge. To make this a reality, it will be necessary for the nurse to have a strategy on how to implement it. Theories like the Orem model help the nurses as well as health care institutions to be able to have a systematic approach in solving a persistent issue they are facing. In this regard, in the implementation of the Orem Model, the following strategy will be followed; Working closely with the relatives In any nursing situation, it is usually necessary for the nurses to work closely with the relatives of the patient in order to make the recovery of the patient not only effective but also holistic (Strong, 2013). Involving the family and friends is important because any health problem that affects the patients also affects the families and friends of the patient. In a rehabilitation situation, there are two main reasons why involving the families of the patients is necessary. First, the family and friends of the patient need to be informed on how to allow the patient to be self efficacious. Failing to do this would mean that the families may err in helping the patient too much and thus enabling the patient to remain in their condition thus deterring the process of recovery. The second reason why it is important is the fact that the families also suffer together with the individual and they will definitely tend to walk through the process with the patient in order to have a holistic recovery. This is in light of the fact that many addiction patients have a problem of not getting the trust they require from some of their family members and friends during and after recovery. Involving the family members will help in allowing them to understand the patient and give the patient a chance to redefine their lives free of the addiction. The second part of the strategy will be to help the patient to understand their situation and to let them understand that the easiest way to come through is if they participate in their own care processes. Since the Orem theory is predicated on the argument that patients are more likely to get well faster and more holistically if they understand the need to take care of themselves, it will therefore be necessary to help the rehabilitation patients to be able to understand their health needs and why they need to improve their situations. This can only be achieved if the nurses actively educate the patients on the need to be self efficacious and to look after their own health. Ethical considerations There are a number of ethical considerations in implementing this strategy. These are as follows; Patient information confidentiality Healthcare officers are supposed to maintain a confidentiality of the information they get from the patient. Nurses for instance must not share the patient’s information with other non medical persons (Justin, 2009). In this regard, while involving the family and friends of the patient is important in using the Orem nursing Model for addiction patients, the nurses will have to be careful in terms of the patient’s information they share with the family as well as the friends of the patient. Failing to be careful in the way this information is shared can lead to very serious ethical violations. This is why the nurses should be able to be very careful and must be able to use a system where the patient’s information is protected. Using this strategy will therefore not only need the nurses to not share sensitive healthcare information with the wrong people, but also to guarantee the patients that their information will not be shared with other people. this as Justin (2009) says, failing to do any of these would lead to the patient being mistrustful and thus impending his road to recovery. Nurse obligations The strategy described above indicates that the patients should be in charge of their dealing process and should be in the front line on caring for their health. In this regard, it is possible for the nurses to fail to understand the importance of supporting the patient. While the Orem Model postulates the need for the patient to take care of himself, it also recognises that the nurse should facilitate this. In fact, the Orem model also recognises that there are those basic support systems that every patient is entitled to. In this regard, nurses should be able to provide for the care they are supposed to provide to the patient and should not use the strategy discussed above as an excuse not to do their duty in caring for the patient. If the nurses deny the patient the care they are entitled to them, this would amount to an unethical situation and the nurses should avoid this at all costs. Legal considerations The legal considerations to be considered in implementing the strategy discussed above are related to the ethical issues discussed. Ethical issues can always lead to legal issues. For instance, if the nurses are not ethical in the way they handle the information about the patients; this is likely to lead to legal suits (Justin, 2009). If the patients feel that the nurses and the healthcare centres where they are being treated are not being ethical in the way they handle their medical information, they are likely to launch legal suits which may affect the whole processes. The same case applies to the other ethical issue discussed. If the patients or their relatives feel that the nurses are not giving the patient the amount and type of care they require, this may lead to a legal suit. In this regard, it is necessary for the nurses to understand this and use the right systems and processes to make sure that this kind of misunderstanding does not come up. To do this, both the individual nurses and the healthcare centres as a whole will need to articulately communicate the strategy being sued and why it is being used. This must be done both to the patients and their family as well. Part IV: Conclusion Nursing theory can be useful in practice because it helps nurses to be able to solve complex problems. The theories can be used to understand a problem to create a solution for the problems. However, nursing theories are not a solution to nursing problems themselves; they are only a bridge to creating solutions. Using nursing theory is also something that must be used in a very careful way since the solutions developed using them can lead to ethical problems. In this regard, it is necessary for the nurses and any involved personnel to be careful when implementing such strategies in order to make sure that they are within the ethical and legal requirements of nursing practice. Implementing nursing theories and creating strategies for nurse-care using these nursing theories can be a complex issue which will require the involvement of many people to also understand the other aspects of nursing such as education, leadership and management (Pipe et al, 2005). As a result, to create a solid nursing strategy from nursing theories will require a team of experts to make sure that everything is taken care of. References Johnson, D. & Roberson, A. (2012). The Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Relaxation Training and Sleep Hygiene Education for Insomnia of Depressed Patients. The Journal of Doctoral Nursing Practice, 6 (1) , 39-46. Justin, L. (2009). Doctor-Patient Confidentilaity; lgala nd Ethical issues in Nursing. Journal of Nursing and health Science, 5 (3) , 47-51. Pipe, B. (2005). Implementing Evidence-Based Nursing Practice . Urologic Nursing, 25 (5) , 365-370. Roberts, B et al. (2013). Clinical Scholars Review. Journal of Doctoral Nursing Practice: Integrating Theory, Research, and Evidence-Based Practice, 6 (1) , 4-8. Strong, L. (2013). Depression Screening in a Primary Care Practice in Oregon. Clinica Scholars Review, 6 (1) , 13-18. Read More