Why Is It Necessary To Undertake A Holistic Assessment

Holistic health assessments are used in nursing to inform the nursing process and provide the foundations of patient care. Through holistic assessment, therapeutic communication, and the ongoing collection of objective and subjective data, nurses can provide improved person-centred care to patients. This essay will analyse why it is necessary to undertake a holistic approach during a nursing assessment and how it corresponds to the nursing process. It will also identify and discuss each element of a holistic nursing assessment and justify with examples why each element is incorporated into an assessment and how the NMBA standards aptly guide the nursing assessment and practice.

PARAGRAPH 1: Holistic Health Approach:
The word ‘Holistic’ is
It is impossible for a nurse to have a full understanding of every culture, but a good cultural assessment will help the nurse understand the patient’s cultural beliefs, values and practices().A cultural assessment entails identifying certain considerations like diet, dress, male and female roles and beliefs around health and illness (Lewis & Foley 2014). These factors can be respected and considered when providing care. Once a conversation begins and the patient describes aspects of cultural heritage, it becomes possible to develop an understanding of the person’s unique health and illness beliefs, practices and cultural needs (Harvey & Park 2015). As the patient’s culture and the nurse’s culture come together in the nursing care relationship, a unique cultural environment is created that can improve or impair the patient’s health outcome (Harvey & Park 2015). A cultural assessment entails identifying certain considerations like diet, dress, male and female roles and beliefs around health and illness (Lewis & Foley 2014). Responsibility for cultural health care is supported by the NMBA standards as demonstrated in standard 1, substandard 1.3 “respects all cultures and