Concept of Comfort
Running Head: CONCEPT OF COMFORT
A Concept Paper on Comfort
Deric Franco A. Sunico
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
Abstract
During my nursing student stint as we were exposed to different hospitals, I have always encountered on chartings the phrase “kept safe and comfortable”. As I practice my profession, questions arises what comfort really means and its diverse perspectives. Being a ward nurse, aside from moving my patients towards health; providing holistic nursing care and client satisfaction is my utmost concern. Leininger (1991) believed comfort to be a function of nursing while Gropper (1992) embraced yet another approach to the delineation of comfort and proposed that comfort is a basic human need pursued by all human beings. Enhancing comfort to my holistic nursing care will help me attain patient satisfaction thus engaging my patient and family to health seeking behaviors.
Review of Literature
From the time of our birth, we, human beings long for comfort. An infant calms down when cradled and rocked, a child stops crying when his hurting knee is kissed, and a sick elderly man seems at peace when his hand is caressed and soft spoken words are whispered to him. Comfort remains a substantive need throughout life and, as such, should be considered an indispensable constituent of holistic nursing care. Kolcaba and Kolcaba (1991), echoed what Gropper said about comfort as a basic human need, which denoted the existence of four comfort needs, which are associated with three comfort states.
The development of nursing knowledge and interventions involve understanding human responses and needs. The purpose of this paper is to study definitions and contextual usage of the word “comfort” from literatures, different professional areas and nursing focusing on how different disciplines exploit the word and answer the conceptual question, “what is comfort”. Literatures from theology, business, engineering, sociology, and nursing were reviewed for
A Concept Paper on Comfort
Deric Franco A. Sunico
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
Abstract
During my nursing student stint as we were exposed to different hospitals, I have always encountered on chartings the phrase “kept safe and comfortable”. As I practice my profession, questions arises what comfort really means and its diverse perspectives. Being a ward nurse, aside from moving my patients towards health; providing holistic nursing care and client satisfaction is my utmost concern. Leininger (1991) believed comfort to be a function of nursing while Gropper (1992) embraced yet another approach to the delineation of comfort and proposed that comfort is a basic human need pursued by all human beings. Enhancing comfort to my holistic nursing care will help me attain patient satisfaction thus engaging my patient and family to health seeking behaviors.
Review of Literature
From the time of our birth, we, human beings long for comfort. An infant calms down when cradled and rocked, a child stops crying when his hurting knee is kissed, and a sick elderly man seems at peace when his hand is caressed and soft spoken words are whispered to him. Comfort remains a substantive need throughout life and, as such, should be considered an indispensable constituent of holistic nursing care. Kolcaba and Kolcaba (1991), echoed what Gropper said about comfort as a basic human need, which denoted the existence of four comfort needs, which are associated with three comfort states.
The development of nursing knowledge and interventions involve understanding human responses and needs. The purpose of this paper is to study definitions and contextual usage of the word “comfort” from literatures, different professional areas and nursing focusing on how different disciplines exploit the word and answer the conceptual question, “what is comfort”. Literatures from theology, business, engineering, sociology, and nursing were reviewed for
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