Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

Being a student nurse in Lehman College has given me a great opportunity to observe nurse’s interaction with the patients. Nurses have a lot of responsibilities in the hospital. Some of the responsibilities that nurses have are doing assessments for those that are ill, give medications, and change dressing. In the hospital, one nurse usually take care of 5-6 patients on their unit floor.

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Nurses must have a therapeutic relationship with the patient and their family members. Sometimes a nurse has so much responsibilities, that it is hard to accomplish every task perfectly. In my clinical at Jacobi Medical Center, a patient that was newly admitted to the hospital was bleeding in his stomach, because he has stomach cancer.Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay The patient’s sister came to the hospital; she saw the blood and was very upset. She was crying and told the nurse to clean the blood off her younger brother. The nurse said she was going to take care of it, after she finish giving all her medication to the patients. As a student nurse, me and my partner tried to help as much as possible. He also had colostomy, so we didn’t know how to change that yet. We know how hard this time of life is for the patient and the family. And we ‘re frustrated when the healthcare system, which should be helping to ease the burden, instead contributes to their suffering and distress (Fahlberg, 2016). The sister had to do the cleaning herself, she couldn’t wait for the nurse. It was very hard to see the sister crying and the nurse couldn’t help this patient first.
Nursing as human science to me is the study of both the medical and the human aspect of nursing. It is a human science because it is the interpretation of the experiences and activities with human beings. Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

The Importance of Effective Communication between Doctors and Nurses during End-of-Life Care in the Intensive Care Unit End-of-life care, as defined by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, is the term used to describe the support and medical care given during the time surrounding death. The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is a specialty area that cares for critically-ill patients who are facing life-threatening problems. The goal of the ICU is to help patients and their families get through this difficult stage using advance medical interventions and continuous emotional support. But sometimes, patients may not recover and death can be imminent.Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

Nurse Patient SafetyThe ICU Nurse and Patient Safety
Abstract

Nurses play a central role in direct patient care and safety surveillance at the point of care. This role suggests a need for consensus on a core set of measures that can be used to monitor safe practices and guide resource allocation decisions that affect patient outcomes in a health system.

This work will review factors affecting patient safety in ICU and what to do to reach a proper patient outcome.Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

The ICU

Patients in Intensive Care Units are at risk of unsafe care because of the complex environment, also a patient may sustain an injury as a direct result of daily care. This makes nurses uniquely poised to have a tremendous impact on patient safety as professional caregivers in direct contact with patients and their families. Quality care and patient safety require a focused commitment from all level of an organization, yet nurses serve as the bedside safety advocate with the opportunity to put theory into practice. The challenges are: What is the right thing to do? Is the right thing being done? Is it being done right?Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

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Factors that play a role in patient safety in ICU environment

The critical care setting is one of the most complex environments in a health care facility. Critical care units must manage the intersecting challenges of maintaining a high-tech environment and ensuring staff competency in operating the equipments, providing high-quality care to the sickest patients of a health facility and attending to the needs of staff members working in a very stressful environment (Chang et al, 2005).Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

Before building initiatives to enhance patient safety, the extent of patient injuries and events in ICUs must be well explained. Critically ill patients are at high risk for complications due to the severity of their medical conditions, the complex and invasive nature if intensive care treatments and procedures and the use of drugs and technology that carry risks as well as benefits (Chang et al, 2005).

What to do?

The first step of patient safety improvement process is to gain the support and engaging leadership.Risk managers, patient safety officers and critical care physicians start working together to make a business case to executives for patient safety investments. In short; implementing ICU patient safety plane becomes a team effort (Rainey and Combs, 2003).Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

An improvement initiative will be more successful if a culture of patient safety prevails. This should create an ICU environment in which all members of ICU team understand how to exchange patient information in a meaningful and respectful way. A starting point in creating such a culture is to conduct an assessment of the current climate in the ICU whether and how it affects patient care (Rainey and Combs, 2003).

A facility’s approach to provide safe critical care services will depend mainly on the ICU is organized, staffed and designed i.e. ICU staffing, structure and work environment. Generally, there are three organizational models for ICUs; the open model which allows different members of the medical staff to mange patients in the ICU. The closed model is limited to ICU certified physicians managing all cases. The hybrid model, it combines aspects of the previous two models on referral basis (Chang et al 2005, Rainey and Combs 2003 and Pronovost et al 2003).Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

Work environment within the ICU is characterized by being high work load and fatigue; both have been identified as major negative contributors to patient safety. Staffing an adequate number of critical care educated nurses is essential to the delivery of high quality ICU care (Chang et al 2006).

ICU equipment, technology and systems should be assessed from the perspective of patient safety before acquisition and implementation. When devices do not undergo a rigorous evaluation for appropriateness during acquisition or when they are not used properly or badly maintained, they can contribute seriously to patient safety (Pronovost et al 2003).Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

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Quality indicators: Savitz, Cheryl and Shulamit, conducted a meta-analysis on quality indicators sensitive to nurse staffing in acute care settings and their results did not to specific indicators that should necessarily be examined in monitoring performance and examining trends in safety as related to nursing staff.

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What is needed?

The shortage of critical care nurses has increased concerns for patient safety. Programs must retain experienced critical care nurses and maintain nursing staff competency with medial equipments and procedures. Continuing education must not be neglected on the assumption that the nurse can not be spared (Trossman 2000). Closer cooperation and understanding is always needed for the ICU staff members. Having a clear program for ICU patient safety should make the job easier.Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

Conclusion

Recognizing the critical linkage between nursing workforce and safe and effective outcome for patients, both health provider and professional organizations are committed to work together to accelerate the adoption of evidence based practices known to improve the working nursing environment, patient safety and quality outcomes for patients.

This necessitates having a culture that supports patients safety, operating the ICUs as a dedicated team managed by intensive care specialists with specialized training. Finally, to ensure that the work environments can support the caregivers to interact productively, make proper level titrated vital decisions, perform medical intervention and operate medical equipments safely.Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

…rything possible to treat the human response of the illness. The nursing diagnosis is an example of this. In clinical, I would help feed the patient, and get whatever they need so they would be comfortable. The patient would be happy and be very grateful, when I response to his call. It also makes me feel good too. As human being, we feel good when we help one another. Human science is unique; it is always changing, because everyone is different. As a nurse, we need to think on our feet and constantly learning. We also must use critical thinking skills, so when an emergency happens, we will be able to think of the best scenario for the problem. The science part of nursing is also very important because we need to know how the body works and the drugs react in our body. There will always be new health innovations, so we must keep learning and improve our techniques.Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

The aim of the thesis is to describe good quality interaction between the registered nurse and
the patient. This topic was chosen because nurse patient interaction is the heart of the caring
relationship and has been extensively investigated from a nursing perspective. It can have
significant benefit to an individual’s health in reducing the risk of social isolation, low selfesteem, loneliness, and depression. (Cobertt 2014.) The objective is to produce new
knowledge for nursing professional concerning how best a nurse can foster the interaction
with the patient in order to improve the treatment and caring outcome.
Good communication skills make the difference between average and excellent nursing care.
The interaction between the patient and nurse forms the basis of nursing care throughout the
field of health, illness, healing, and recovery. Some nurse- patient relationship may last only a
few hours, others may last days, months, or even years. What is interesting about each
relationship is how uncommon and enriching it can be for both the patient and the nurse.Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
(Taiwo 2014.)
The focus of communication in the nurse-patient interaction is the patients’ needs that is,
patient centered care. To meet these needs, the nurse must take into consideration various
factors, including the patients physical condition, emotional state, cultural preference, values,
needs, readiness to communicate and ways of relating to others. Nurses should respect the
uniqueness of each patient and aim to understand his or her response to changes in health.
The nurse builds the relationship with the patient by integrating the concept of respect,
empathy, trust and confidentiality into their interaction. (Taiwo 2014.)
Every patient requires respect and acceptance as a unique human being. Acceptance does
not mean approval or agreement; rather it is non-judgmental attitude about the patient as a
whole person. The aim is to make the patient feel comfortable and legitimize his or her feelings.Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
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NURSE – PATIENT INTERACTION
Nurse–patient interaction fundamentally relates to meaning and purpose-in-life and might be
and important resource in relation to the patient’s mental health. The main aim of high-quality
nurse-patient interaction is to increase psychological and physical health, wellbeing and
psycho-spiritual functioning in this vulnerable population. (Haugan 2014.)
Nursing is accomplished in every encounter with a patient. The goal of the nurse is the
patient’s well-being, and this is achieved through the interaction between them, an experience
developing in whatever cultural context or healthcare setting in the world. The interaction is
not just an irrelevant incidence, but also a human experience that establishes a relational link
between nurse and patient. (Tejero 2012.)
The interaction between nurse and patient is a mutual and comprehension-oriented
communication whereby discussions takes place, and actions are exchanged between nurse
and patient. The nurse aspect that is consistent with symbolic interactionism, which is in turn
the views of interaction between persons and not as a stimulus-response connection. but as
a meaningful and purposive action-reaction interchange. (Tejero 2012.)Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
Patient centered nursing interventions (PCNIs), system characteristics, patient characteristics
and desired health outcomes (DHOs), found that three PCNIs positively related to some
specific outcomes. However, not all interventions showed direct effects on the outcomes.
Treatment regimen alone does not fully account for patient outcomes. It is interpersonal
communication that plays a major role. Thus; this research was conceptualized to focus on
nurse–patient interaction. (Poochikian-sarkissian, Sidani, & Furgeson, et al 2010.)
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Qualities of a good nurse patient interaction
Therapeutic communication
A nurse patient therapeutic relationship is described as one in which the patient feels
comfortable and safe being open and honest with the nurse (Nicole 2015). It is associated to
the development of an effective relationship and positive outcomes (Canning, Rosenberg, &
Yates 2016). Rather than curing the disease process, therapeutic communication is
concerned with showing empathy and warmth to help the patients feel relaxed and secure (Mc
Cabe, & Timmins 2013). In order to develop a therapeutic relationship, the nurse must be
caring, honest, open and warm. Therapeutic relationship is cultivated by employing listening
and questioning techniques along with providing information, giving support and ensuring
care.It is patient centered as opposed to being task oriented. Therefore, to support the
development of a therapeutic relationship the nurse has to be a skilled communicator. (Bach,
& Grant 2011.)Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
Communication has been described as a social process between two or more people in which
messages are sent and received, and requires the use of verbal and nonverbal techniques.
High quality care for patients and the nurses entirely depends on communication skills.it is by
employing all these elements when communicating with the patients that the nurses can gain
the patients trust and establish a sense of togetherness. (Balzer-railey 2008.)
Phases of therapeutic nurse patient interaction
In nursing, a therapeutic nurse-patient relationship has been described as one that allows for
the meeting of nursing needs and mutual satisfaction of nurse and patient. In order to form a
therapeutic relationship with a patient, the nurse must first develop an understanding of her
own beliefs and values and her ability to create relationships or personal knowing, before she
can respond to the needs of her patients. For an emotionally intelligent nurse, must open
communication with the patient and also demonstrate trust and commitment as well as be
honest. (Balzer-railey 2008.)
The concern and an unconditional positive regard for the patient will enable the development
of a relationship that is therapeutic rather than superficial in nature. Feelings of empathy and
sympathy will then inspire the nurse to develop practical methods in order to come to know
the patient as an individual with his/her own set of beliefs and values. Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
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Through setting appropriate boundaries, the nurse and patient enter into a mutual and
respective relationship that enables the provision of nursing care that is individually designed
to meet the patient’s needs as well maintain the professional satisfaction of the nurse. The
nature of nurse-patient relationship is very dependent on the situation in which nursing care is
delivered. In critical care nursing, where technology can act as a wall and compromise nursepatient communication, it can be very difficult to develop therapeutic relationships. Without
these, nurses are reduced to objective technologists, while patients become objects to be
examined and evaluated. The one-to-one nurse-patient ratio in critical care nursing enables
nurses to get to know their patients and this allows them access to knowledge about their
patient’s cultures, values and beliefs. However, this demands that the nurse needs to get
involved very closely with the patient and family in order to fully understand where the patient
is at in regards to his/her illness and provide care tailored to their specific needs. (Balzer-railey
2008.)Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
Phases of therapeutic nurse – patient interaction
The nurse – patient process includes; orientation phase, identification phase, exploitation
phase, resolution phase, and termination phase.
Orientation phase
The start of nurse patient interaction requires special communication skills. In day to day life
people communicate with those around them through listening, sharing, talking, reassuring
and caring. Registered nurses use these components of communication to establish a
relationship. The nurse sets the nature of the relationship by greeting the patient in a proper
manner. The tone and enthusiasm used during this exchange promotes connection between
the registered nurse and patient. Often a handshake is an appropriate introduction component
but this varies with different cultural settings and severity of the clinical situation. Patients are
first addressed by their formal names then are asked which names they would prefer to be
used. Establishing a rapport may begin with talking about clinical relevant topics or social
disclosure like the weather, environment. Registered nurse establishes their trust by being
consistent in their words and actions. This consistency conveys dependability and
competence. (Nurse Best Practise Guidelines 2002)Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
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After the greetings, the RG analyze the principle and nature of the relationship. This includes
giving information about appointments, interviews, describing the nurse’s role, helping the
patient provide important information, and describing the goals of the relationship. Starting the
goals of the relationship is important not only in the delivery of care but also to the evaluation
of the relationship and outcomes during the ending phase. Anxiety levels decrease when the
patient knows what to expect and participate in the establishment of the relationship. The
nurses seek to promote trust and reduce anxiety by being respectful, honest, and informative.
Good body language and active listening helps the patient to feel more comfortable and
remain focused for the next phase. (Nurse Best Practise Guidelines 2002.)
Collection of data for the nursing evaluation, requires active patient participation to verify his
or her health status and functioning. The nurse also needs an open mind to understand the
patients’ perception of the problem and the need for treatment. What may seem possible to
the nurse may not be the patients’ view of the situation. It is important for the nurse to take
time to listen to the patient and hear his or her needs and assumption from the care accorded
so as to prevent disappointments during and at the end of the relationship. (Nurse Best
Practise Guidelines 2002.)
Identification phase
The actual work begins in this phase. The nurse and patient work together to identify problems
and set problem oriented goals. Health problems are diagnosed during the data collection and
appropriate interventions are developed in the nursing care plan. Mutual goal setting allows
the patient to be able to engage in their care. Nurses can also help the patient to explore
feelings about their situation including fear, anxiety and helplessness. Identification of
personal strengths and resources may help the patient to be able to cope with the health
problems and participate actively in their care. (Nurse Best Practise Guidelines 2002.)Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
Exploitation phase
In this phase, the nurse support the patient use the health services effectively. Interventions
appropriate to the mutually planned goals are carried out with ongoing re-assessment and reevaluation. Sometimes even the well planned interventions need to be reviewed and new or
more realistic goals need to be set. Therapeutic relationship allows the nurse and patient to
work effectively. The patient uses identified strengths and resources to regain control of the
situation and develop solutions. (Nurse Best Practise Guidelines 2002.)
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Resolution phase
Ending a therapeutic relationship requires a period of resolution. One of the nurse’s job is to
show care to the patient. Often, a lot of sharing occurs in the nurse and patient relationship
during the challenging times in the patients’ health. The relationship was established with a
purpose and time span. Each relationship either short term or long term partnership requires
both the nurse and patient to prepare for the end or resolution. (Nurse Best Practise Guidelines
2002.)Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
Termination phase
The ending of the therapeutic relationship can be an important time for the nurse and patient
to examine the accomplishment of their goals and review their time together. The nurse uses
the summarization skills to evaluate the progress of the intended goals. This brings a sense
of achievement and closure for both parties and it ends when the patient leaves for home
Emotions are part of ending a relationship. Caring attitude and shared experiences especially
for long time relationships may bring about sadness for both the nurse and the patient.
Termination of a relationship can awaken feelings of loss from previous relationships.
Acknowledgement of the feelings that arise is helpful in reducing sadness brought about by
the patient leaving. In this phase is when the unmet goals are identified by the nurse and if the
patient requires referral and follow up care.
Nurses and patients respond differently in regards to ending a relationship. Patients might
regress, become anxious or dependent. The nurse might detach and also spend less time with
the patient in preparation for the termination of the relationship. These reactions are deemed
normal. Nurses and patients should talk about ending their relationship taking time to
reminisce of the achievements and the moments shared. Nurses should not avoid the
discomfort they feel during these discussions because the relationship was worthwhile. The
therapeutic relationship should end with satisfaction from both parties. (Nurse Best Practise
Guidelines 2002.)Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
2.1 Promoting patient safety
Therapeutic relationship in nursing, a therapeutic nurse-patient relationship has been
described as one that allows for the meeting of nursing needs to the mutual satisfaction of
nurse and patient.
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In order to enter into a therapeutic relationship with a patient, the nurse must first develop an
understanding of her own beliefs and values and her ability to create relationships or personal
knowing, before she can respond to the needs of her patients. But the emotionally intelligent
nurse must, through open communication with the patient, also demonstrate trust and
commitment as well as a genuine concern and an unconditional positive regard for the patient
to enable the development of a relationship that is therapeutic rather than superficial in nature
(O’Connell 2008.)
Feelings of empathy and compassion will then motivate the nurse to develop practical
strategies in order to come to know the patient as an individual with his/her own set of beliefs
and values. Through setting appropriate boundaries, the nurse and patient enter into a mutual
and reciprocal relationship that enables the provision of nursing care that is individually tailored
to meet the patient’s needs as well maintain the professional satisfaction of the nurse. The
nature of nurse-patient relationship is very dependent on the context in which nursing care is
delivered. In critical care nursing, where technology can act as a barrier and compromise
nurse-patient communication, it can be very difficult to develop therapeutic relationships.Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay

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Without these, nurses are reduced to objective technologists, while patients become objects
to be examined and evaluated. (O’Connell, 2008.)
The one-to-one nurse-patient ratio in critical care nursing enables nurses to get to know their
patients and this allows them access to knowledge about their patient’s cultures, values and
beliefs. However, this demands that the nurse needs to engage very closely with the patient
and family in order to fully understand where the patient is at in regards to his/her illness and
provide care tailored to their specific needs. (O’Connell 2008.)
2.2 Emphasizing Human dignity
Human dignity is the central phenomenon in professional nursing. All in all, caring involves
respect for the dignity of human beings. Dignity implies to the inner freedom and responsibility
for one’s own and others’ lives (Pyng 2011).
This concept is used to describe the quality of being worthy, honored or esteemed.it is used
with conjunctions such as respect, worth integrity and human rights. Dignity is considered as
an important aspect in all health care domains. Respecting human dignity requires patient
safety to be taken into consideration without overlooking at the cultural values. (Pyng 2011.)Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
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Understanding the patients culture and religious beliefs is of important for in cooperation of
dignity in practicing safe nursing.it is also important to recognize the patient’s characteristics
and respond to the uniqueness of each type. preserving human dignity involves caring for the
whole patient including moral attitudes and ensuring that respect for patients’ autonomy and
readiness to help the patient when they need support is observed.it is deemed unethical to
allocate patients wards while focusing on their personal characteristics as opposed to their
health care needs (Pyng 2011.)
2.3 Individual and organizational accountability
The ICN position statement nurses and human rights (2006b) makes it clear that nurses are
accountable for their own professional actions and must be alert to the possibility of being
pressured to use their knowledge and skills in a manner that is not truly beneficial to patients
or others.Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
Individual and organizational accountability is an important requirement that is necessary for
understanding a chain of error. The nurse is accountable for every action that they undertake
in regards to the patient care. The causes of errors in practice can be categorized into two:
prospective and retrospective accountability. Prospective accountability which demands
creating a safe environment for the patient care while the retrospective accountability includes
achieving justice for harmed patients. (ICN, 2006 b.)
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Factors promoting quality nurse patient interaction.
It is evident that there are factors promoting nurse effective nurse patient interacting. They
include trust, support, and confidentiality (Carter 2009).
3.1 Trust during nurse patient interaction
Carter (2009) claims that trust is regarded as the basis for any therapeutic relationship and is
essential in the nurse patient relationship. Establishing a trusting relationship is regarded as
an important face in the nurse role and as a basis for continued care and treatment. (Hem,
Heggen & Ruyter 2008) that trust is not something that nurse possess or are given rather it is
something they have to work hard to achieve. It is a two-way thing between the person who
makes themselves trustworthy and the person who puts their trust in them. Nurses’ state of
mind is regarded as an important tool in effective communication. Personal life and
environment is regarded as a factor that would influence nurses’ ability to communicate.
There are several factors that were shortlisted that promote trust they included: honesty,
trustworthiness, confidentiality and readiness to provide the best care, humility, sensitivity, and
the ability to see the whole situation, understanding the patients suffering, demonstrating
tolerance and tolerance, accepting the patients’ culture and decisions without prejudgment,
offering good and quality advice, reassurance and encouragement. Several factors were also
highlighted to be a hindrance to quality trust. They included: lack of knowledge and skills to
undertake nursing procedures, nurses’ use of medical terms that patients were not familiar
with could create a language barrier that hinders effective communication, failure to
understand the needs of the patient, depersonalizing the patients like referring to him or her
as per their medical diagnosis, staying a far from the patient. Work related challenges for
nurses like conflict between nurses and patients, lack of time to tend for patients. (Hem,
Heggen, & Ruyter 2008.)Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
Studies show that patient satisfaction is achieved greatly through trust. For patients, suffering
from chronic illnesses trust was a meaningful and component in shaping their illness. For
patients with personal disorders trust gave they hope and for the dying patients trust gave
them an incentive of living. For nurses, when trust developed patients were more compliant
with the care thus increasing job satisfaction.in turn it contributed to the patient’s recovery and
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had a positive impact on the care. It also allowed nurses to undertake painful procedures
without stress. (Hem,Heggen, & Ruyter 2008.)
3.2 Support during nurse patient interaction
Mattila (2010) undertook a concept analysis of support in nursing, finding an extensive usage
of the term, which categorized it as physical, social, emotional, and psychological. She claims
that Nurses are an important source of support for patients and family members during
hospitalization. Serious illness are exceptional events in life that do not only affect the patient
but also the whole family. For both the family and the patient there is shock, anger, guilt,
anxiety and fear that comes about because of the illness. In some cases, some family
members may be burdened by the illness more than the patient and may develop long term
symptoms of stress and depression that may be a threat to their health. Family members are
a source of support to the patient and have a significant effect on how the patient copes with
the life changes that follow the illness.
Support evolves in an interactive process of giving and receiving between the patient, nurse
and the family members. Patients and family members need for support are primarily on the
areas of emotional and informational support. Emotional support involves elements such as
feelings and expressing care, empathizing, listening, respecting and human dignity.
Informational support involves provision of information, advice and counselling.it is possible to
provide support to patients in all stages of life. Physical, psychological and spiritual pain maybe
caused by lack of social support that can lead to patient isolation, loneliness, and loss of
meaning in life. (Mattila, Kaunonen, Aalto et al 2010.)
3.3 Cultural awareness during nurse patient interaction
Cultural awareness is the ability to understand one’s own culture and perspectives alongside
the stereotypes and misconceptions associated with other unknown or less known cultures.it
is the first step of providing a culturally competent care. It improves when RG recognizes how
their own cultural and specific beliefs influence the patient interaction. Cultural awareness
provides the foundation for the other constructs in the model, including cultural awareness,
knowledge, skills, and encounters. Cultural awareness is the recognition of one’s own attitudes
and assumptions toward similarities and differences in others, acknowledging racism, bias,
and stereotyping. Cultural knowledge is the awareness of cultural health beliefs and values,
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including culturally specific incidence and prevalence of health conditions. (Mareno & Patricia
2014.)Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
Behaviors represents the actions the nurse demonstrate when adapting care to be culturally
congruent. This requires knowledge of the heritage, attitudes, and behaviors of those in the
nurse’s care and calls for creativity in the use of that knowledge. Nursing care should give
while looking through a cultural lens. Behaviors will be unique as nurses interact within,
among, and between groups, understanding and appreciating the differences encountered.
As health care shifts from hospital base to variety of community health settings, health and
allied health professionals will provide health care to a growing community of people of color
whose language, customs, values, lifestyle, beliefs, and behaviors differ from their own.
Differences between the patients culture and the culture of the health care worker may be
more apparent in a community setting, compared to hospital setting, because ,unlike hospital
the locus of control lies with clients in the community environments and not with health care
workers in clinical environments. (Mareno & Patricia 2014.)
3.4 Confidentiality during nurse patient interaction
Nurses are subject to numerous ethical and legal duties in their professional role, including
the imperative to maintain patient’s privacy and confidentiality (McGowan 2012). Nurses have
moral and legal obligations not to share patient information with others, except in specific
circumstances. Beyond the dictates of legal statues, it is important from the standpoint of trust
that patients know that their personal information will be kept confidential. Patients will be more
forthcoming and honest in their revelations and responses if they feel that their information is
confidentiality. Nurses should arrange for privacy in the physical setting before discussing
sensitive information with patients. Providing privacy may include finding an empty room or
asking an ambulatory roommate to leave the room or closing a door. Keeping patient
information confidential includes not speaking in public places where information could be
overheard, such as elevators and cafeterias. It also includes confidentiality with electronic
information. (Griffith 2008.)Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay
Critical care providers are often privy to confidential information in the course of clinical
practice. The dilemma may arise when confidential information is requested by family
members or friends of the patient. Although at times it means that regulations and laws are so
stringent that any disclosure of health care information is forbidden, it may be necessary and
appropriate to make disclosures, and the current regulations and laws support the professional
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judgment in communicating patient’s health information.The duty of confidence is fundamental
aspect of the nurse-patient relationship, but it is not absolute. There will be occasions where
confidential information about a patient will need to be disclosed to others. Such a disclosure
must be to an appropriate person and comply with the requirements of your contractual,
professional and legal duty of confidence, or you will be called to account and face sanction
for breaching confidentiality. (McCullough 2013.) Nurse ‘s Interaction With The Patients Essay