Running head: THE ART OF CARING

The Art of Caring Ora Despain Dixie State University

THE ART OF CARING The Art of Caring

Caring can be simply defined as showing or having compassion (Lachman, 2012). Caring in reality seems to be much more than this simple definition indicates. When one cares about someone else, they have an emotional response and an action based on the emotions felt. Caring cannot exist without having genuine emotions or feeling regarding the situation. The definition seems to hold true when assessing caring as one of the core virtues of nursing. For nurses, caring is in every aspect of their job. It can be anticipating and treating the pain a patient might experience before getting out of bed for the first time after surgery. Caring can be something as simple as a nurse taking a few extra minutes to talk with a lonely patient who hasn't had visitors much during their stay, or caring can be when the nurse identifies a coworker that is struggling to complete a task and takes the time to help them complete it. When a nurse cares about her patients, they can tell just by the way the nurse interacts with them.

Caring Example
One moving example of caring demonstrated by a nurse occurred on a postpartum unit involving a new mother after a traumatic delivery. That nurse came in on time with every medication ordered for the patient even if it had not been asked for yet, she spoke softly with a calming tone of voice the whole time to help promote rest for this tired couple who had been up all night laboring, she spent extra time helping this mother learn to care for her wounds from the delivery, and encouraged her to completely care for her child which instilled confidence in this young woman to continue striving to give herself and her child excellent care after they were discharged. The way this nurse carried herself, and the quiet extra time she devoted to this young family impacted them so deeply that even seven years later the mother still smiles when she thinks about this angel of a nurse. Caring demonstrations like this can be seen all over the world in the art of nursing.

Caring Study
A study was done involving Saudi Arabian hospitals to try and define what caring behaviors had the most impact on patients and their overall satisfaction with the care they received in those hospitals. The caring theory that the study decided to use to base their research on was Jean Watsons. According to Suliman et al., A strong majority of participants (97.2%) rated overall caring behaviors as important.

THE ART OF CARING

The most important caring behavior subscales included humanism/faith-hope/sensitivity (96.7%), supportive/protective/corrective environment (95.7%), and human needs assistance (95.4%). (Suliman,

Welmann, Omer, & Thomas, 2009, p. 295) Patients were given a series of caring statements and asked to rank them in importance according to their hospital stay. The top three most important caring behaviors according to the patients involved timely medication administration, perceived respect from the nurse, and a demonstration of gentle nature (Suliman et al., 2009). The study clearly noted an overwhelming patient response to humanism and sensitivity being demonstrated by the nurses as being most important to them.

Conclusion
The study and the example of a nurse caring seem to fall hand in hand when it comes to the theme of what parts of caring are important to the patient. Both show an overwhelming emphasis on the power of caring and how the patient perceives the stay they had in the hospital. The example takes it a step further and demonstrates how much of an impact the caring behaviors can truly have on the life of that patient, but the study did not quantify the depth of importance that caring can have. The study merely ranked different caring statements in order, which gives them some value, but doesnt clearly demonstrate the emotion that is behind the act of caring as well as the personal example does.

THE ART OF CARING References Lachman, V. D. (2012). [Entire issue]. Medsurg Nursing, 21(2). Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/ Suliman, W. A., Welmann, E., Omer, T., & Thomas, L. (2009). [Entire issue]. Journal of Nursing Research, 17(4). http://dx.doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/JNR.0b013e3181c122a3