Patient Centered Approaches To Nursing -Historical Nursing Theory

Nursing development was invented by Nightngale who documented important notes about nursing. However it demonstrate positive growth 100 years after this documentation (Smith & Parker, 2010). During this period, one of the historical phase of nursing theory development that I consider to be very important is the patient-centered approaches to nursing. This theory was developed in 1960 by Faye Abdellah (McEwen & Wills, 2014). The phase is important because it assisted in demonstrating that nursing care should be unique to different individuals based. It introduced the concept of personalized care which focus on caring on each patient based on the patient condition. In my opinion, this is what introduced special care to different group of patients based on their form of suffering. Patient-centered nursing approaches have highly contributed to the development of various evidence based practices focus on a certain group of patients. For instance, it introduced the need to manage pain and to prioritize on pain management among cancer patients. It also resulted to the introduction to special nursing care given to elderly due to similarity in their needs for care. For instance, the need for safety and fall prevention for elderly patients.

This theory can also be said to have played a great role in the development of person-centered nursing: theory and practice developed recently in 2010 by Brendan (McEwen & Wills, 2014). In my opinion it is through patient-centered practice that Brendan noted that despite of suffering from the same conditions and experiencing similar symptoms, patients differs extensively and in this regard, some patient can respond to a certain form of care as compared to other based on their life experience and their current life situation. For instance, two patients may be suffering from colon cancer, but one may be having enough emotional, and economic support from friends and family than the other. The two can be provided similar care based on patient-centered theory, however, the patient experiencing financial problems may not respond to this care at a similar rate as compared to the other patient. The will and strength to fight for this patient may be low, and thus, this patient may need extra personalized care.

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