Importance Of Comfort In Nursing

8. COMFORT

According to the merriam-webster (2010) dictionary comfort means “to give strength and hope to”, therefore all humans crave for comfort both physically and mentally. It is a complex term that is used on a day to day basis. Comfort is the state of relief from distress or the state of ease and peaceful contentment or anything that brings pleasure to life that does not cause pain or sorrow. The responsibility of a nurse is not just to provide physical care but includes making the patient relax mentally.

It runs through the theories of Nightingale, Orlando, Watson, Roy and Kolcaba. It is what determines the outcome of care nurses render. It is discussed in nursing practice, research and theory. It can also be described both

Good lighting, pictures of pleasant scenes, sunlight, good ventilation all geared towards safety, removal of odours and prevention of infection and good sleep. It is the acceptable standard of care in today’s nursing. Comfort is an important concept in nursing in four ways - “1) the need of comfort is basic, 2) persons experience comfort holistically, 3) self-comforting measures can be healthy or unhealthy, and 4) enhanced comfort, if achieved in healthy ways, leads to greater productivity”.

Comfort can also be described in terms of relationship where patient feel confident when they have a good relationship with the care giver the nurse. Comfort can also be seen in terms of physical, psychological, sociocultural, and environmental. The nurses intentional actions in this respect strengthen patients and significant others. And as a result of this patients seek healthy behaviors that improve the totality of their health and comfort. Above all the ability of the nurse meeting the basic human needs is comfort.

PERSONAL LIFE

For pain management, using the pain scale e.g. numerical (0-10) is a good way to measure the comfort level of my patient be it in oncology, surgery, emergency, trauma and burns unit or intensive care setting. Asking the patient to rate the level of pain on this scale makes the patient to be part of the decision making toward his/her care. Monitoring the level is a tool for assessing the comfort level of the patients .in essence finding out what gives the patient comfort is the key to the implementation of the concept of COMFORT. Encouraging the nursing staff to be Understanding , show empathy and intervene with best evidence based practice . I would like to implement the comfort theory in enhancing the comfort level of nurses in my hospital . This time not for pateints. USEFULNESS OF THE CONCEPT TO THE CURRENT WORLD (COMFORT):

The concept of comfort can be evaluated e.g. the using the pain score scale .it is useful in the nursing process. The nursing homes are also benefiting from its use they are now able to use the attributes to provide quality care. Its use has resulted in an improved nurse and patient satisfaction, and has led to improved image and reputation of the hospital which inversely brought about improved revenues for the management of the facilities.