Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore emergency care nurses’ experiences of an intervention to increase compassion and empathy and reduce stress through individual mindfulness training ...delivered via workshops and a smartphone application. We also explored how the nurses felt about the practical and technical aspects of the intervention. Design: Qualitative interview study. Method: Individual interviews were conducted with eight of the 56 participants in the intervention study and used phenomenological analysis to illuminate how they made sense of their lived experiences of mindfulness training. Findings: Three themes illuminated the nurses’ experiences: becoming aware, changing through mindfulness, and gaining the tools for mindfulness through workshops and the mobile application. The first two themes expressed personal experiences, whereas the third expressed experiences of the practical and technical aspects of the intervention. Most nurses found the mobile application easy to use and effective. Conclusions: Emergency care nurses can feel that the awareness and changes that come with mindfulness training benefit them, their colleagues, and the patients for whom they care. The findings also provide insights into the challenges of practicing mindfulness in a busy emergency care setting and into the practical aspects of using a smartphone application to train mindfulness.
This study aimed to explore the patient's lived experience of receiving caring touch after sustaining an acute illness or disease while being cared for in a short-term emergency ward.
Admissions to ...short-term emergency ward for an acute illness or disease is often associated with increased stress, anxiety and pain. The caring touch in focus in this study is tactile massage and healing touch. A complementary treatment of tactile massage or healing touch was offered to patients to complement their routine nursing care.
This study has a qualitative interpretive design that explored two complementary approaches.
Twenty-five patients (16 women and 9 men) admitted to the short-term emergency ward for acute conditions agreed to participate in the study and were individually interviewed. Data were collected from between January and May 2011. Data was analysed using a phenomenological-hermeneutical method.
The patients’ lived experience indicated that caring touch resulted in an existential togetherness characterised by a nonverbal peacefulness, trust, consolation, safety, and a restoration of what it means to be a being human. However, some patients also expressed ambivalence towards caring touch. There also seemed to be a fine line between feelings of intimacy, sensuality, and sexuality, especially among the male patients.
In the presence of an acute illness or disease, caring touch may provide trust and consolation for the patient's body and soul which may help to restore his or her integrity. The complexity of intimacy is an aspect that needs further study.
Purpose: The purpose of the study was to illuminate the experience of caring touch in intensive care from the perspectives of patients, next-of-kin, and healthcare professionals. Design and Method: ...This study was explorative, and data were collected through qualitative observations ( n = 9) with subsequent interviews ( n = 27) at two general intensive care units. An inductive approach was embraced to be open-minded to the participants’ experiences. Findings: The results are presented in one generic category—caring touch creates presence—which generated five subcategories: to touch and be touched with respect, touch as guidance and communication, touch causes suffering, touch creates compassion, and touch creates security. Conclusion: When the ability to communicate with words is lost, it is body language that reveals what a person is trying to express. Nurses create a way of being present with the patients by touching them, to communicate I am here for you. Caring touch is a tool to show compassion and respect and to protect the integrity of the lived body. The caring touch is soothing and comforting for the patient and next-of-kin and creates security. It also helps to awaken the motivation to get healthy, which is needed in an environment that is foreign.
Highlights • Discharge notes and referrals lack information about patient-centered aspects. • Patient's and primary care provider's tasks post-discharge are not documented. • No association between ...hospital request for follow-up and primary care follow-up.
Tactile Massage as Part of the Caring Act Airosa, Fanny; Falkenberg, Torkel; Öhlén, Gunnar ...
Journal of holistic nursing,
03/2016, Letnik:
34, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Aims and Objectives: The aim of this study was to illuminate the nursing staff’s lived experiences and meaning in giving tactile massage (TM) while caring for patients in short-term emergency ward. ...Method: Data were collected through individual qualitative interviews with six nurses and eight assistant nurses working with TM in short-term emergency wards in two hospitals in Sweden. The narratives were analyzed using a phenomenological hermeneutical method. Findings: Nurses experienced providing TM to patients as a present awareness in connection with compassion for the patient. TM provided the nurses with a tool to ease patient suffering and pain. Three dimensions were found where touch became a tool of doing, was an aware presence as a mindful being, and was embodied in a human-to-human connection with a changed caregiver. Conclusion: Given the current high-tech health care system with overcrowded units and a shortage of nursing staff, TM could be included as a caring tool to improve the caring in caregiving, allowing nurses to act in aware presence by touch to encourage health and well-being for both the patient and themselves.
This study explores nursing personnel's experiences and perceptions of receiving tactile massage and hypnosis during a personnel health promotion project. Nursing in a short term emergency ward ...environment can be emotionally and physically exhausting due to the stressful work environment and the high dependency patient care. A health promotion project integrating tactile massage and hypnosis with conventional physical activities was therefore introduced for nursing personnel working in this setting at a large university hospital in Sweden.
Four semi-structured focus group discussions were conducted with volunteer nursing personnel participants after the health promotion project had been completed. There were 16 participants in the focus groups and there were 57 in the health promotion intervention. The discussions were transcribed verbatim and analysed with qualitative content analysis.
The findings indicated that tactile massage and hypnosis may contribute to reduced levels of stress and pain and increase work ability for some nursing personnel. The sense of well-being obtained in relation to health promotion intervention with tactile massage and hypnosis seemed to have positive implications for both work and leisure. Self-awareness, contentment and self-control may be contributing factors related to engaging in tactile massage and hypnosis that might help nursing personnel understand their patients and colleagues and helped them deal with difficult situations that occurred during their working hours.
The findings indicate that the integration of tactile massage and hypnosis in personnel health promotion may be valuable stress management options in addition to conventional physical activities.
The epistemological standpoint of this thesis is the theory of the lifeworld where the lived body is seen as a unity of body and soul. The overall aim of this thesis was to explore the experiences of ...caring touch interventions, such as tactile massage or healing touch, in an emergency care context, from the perspective of nurses and patients. The concept of ‘caring touch’ was used to capture the meaning, in order to explore the phenomenon of receiving and giving caring touch, and not the treatment per se. This thesis consists of four exploratory studies of which three are qualitative and one a mixed-methods study.The findings of study I indicate that tactile massage may help nurses and assistant nurses working in a short-term emergency ward to deal with a very stressful work environment and improve staff wellbeing.In study II, it is pointed out that admissions to short-term emergency ward for acute illness or disease is often associated with increased stress, anxiety and pain. Caring touch was offered to patients as a complement to usual nursing care. The patients’ lived experience indicated that caring touch resulted in an existential togetherness characterised by a non-verbal peacefulness, trust, consolation, safety, and a restoration of what it means to be a human being. Notably, some patients also expressed ambivalence toward caring touch.In study III, it is suggested that given the current high-tech healthcare system with overcrowded units and a shortage of nurses, including tactile massage as a caring tool may create a more holistic approach to caregiving, allowing nurses and assistant nurses to act with compassion for both the patient and themselves.In study IV, which is a longitudinal observational study, qualitative and quantitative perspectives are combined. Patients with minor or no physical injury after a motor vehicle accident were invited to an intervention with caring touch. Findings from individual interviews and questionnaires indicate that a caring touch intervention improve patients´ wellbeing, and sense of security and pain ratings over a period of six months after the accident.This thesis draw the attention to the potential of caring touch interventions in an emergency context with the overall conclusion that introducing caring touch interventions of tactile massage and healing touch in the short-term emergency ward context seem to benefit patient’s integrity, wellbeing, and sense of security. The caring touch interventions give nurses a tool to increase their patients’ and their own wellbeing in a stressful environment in general. Patients sustaining a motor vehicle accident with minor or no physical injury in particular, highly appreciated a follow-up to the hospital after discharge by the invitation to a caring touch intervention and this was also associated with reduced pain ratings.
Patients who sustain a motor vehicle accident may experience long-term distress, even if they are uninjured or only slightly injured. There is a risk of neglecting patients with minor or no physical ...injuries, which might impact future health problems. The aim of this study was to explore patients' subjective experiences and perspectives on pain and other factors of importance after an early nursing intervention consisting of "caring touch" (tactile massage and healing touch) for patients subjected to a motor vehicle accident with minor or no physical injuries.
A mixed method approach was used. The qualitative outcomes were themes derived from individual interviews. The quantitative outcomes were measured by visual analogue scale for pain (VAS, 0-100), sense of coherence (SOC), post-traumatic stress (IES-R) and health status (EQ-5D index and EQ-5D self-rated health). Forty-one patients of in total 124 eligible patients accepted the invitation to participate in the study. Twenty-seven patients completed follow-up after 6 months whereby they had received up to eight treatments with either tactile massage or healing touch.
Patients reported that caring touch may assist in trauma recovery by functioning as a physical "anchor" on the patient's way of suffering, facilitating the transition of patients from feeling as though their body is "turned off" to becoming "awake". By caring touch the patients enjoyed a compassionate care and experience moments of pain alleviation. The VAS pain ratings significantly decreased both immediately after the caring touch treatment sessions and over the follow-up period. The median scores for VAS (p < 0.001) and IES-R (p 0.002) had decreased 6 months after the accident whereas the EQ-5D index had increased (p < 0.001). There were no statistically significant differences of the SOC or EQ-5D self-rated health scores over time.
In the care of patients suffering from a MVA with minor or no physical injuries, a caring touch intervention is associated with patients' report of decreased pain and improved wellbeing up to 6 months after the accident.
ClinicalTrials.gov Id: NCT02610205 . Date 25 November 2015.
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