NUR443 Evidence-based Nursing Research And Practice
Question:
- Explain the clinical nursing problem.
- Justify why it is an important issue.
Answer:
Introduction
The current study focuses upon the aspect of informal help in nursing. The informal help has recently gained importance in the current decade. This is because owing to high costs of healthcare and the inconveniences of following up with the treatment procedures in the long run many, people have expressed interest in receiving informal support and care services. The informal support and care services are mainly offered by a family member or a person close to the patient. Most of the times, the informal care is provided by a person lacking much expertise or skills in nursing.
Literature review
The aspect of informal care in nursing has been discussed with respect to sufficient evidence based literatures. The informal caregivers form an important part of the US healthcare systems. In most of the cases, the services are provided free of cost and could be of short duration or prolonged over a period of time. As mentioned by Elsa (2015), the process of being associated with the long term care of a person suffer ring from chronic illness is highly stressful and could affect the physical and mental well being of an individual over long run.
The duration of the care giving have been further divided into a number of subtypes over here which are- episodic care giving and long distance care giving. The episodic care giving is provided after discharge from hospital and suffering from acute health traumas such as cancer, stroke and hip fracture. As per reports and evidences, almost 40 million support and care services in US were provided after discharge from hospitals by the family members of the patients as a part of informal care. The episodic events are characterized by acute onset and happen without warning. The episodic caregivers need to adapt themselves sooner to some of the skills related to care giving such as performing in-home medical procedures, operations of medical equipment, monitoring of the status of patient and coordinating care (National Research Council, 2010). The long distance caregivers are on the other hand more educated and skilled compared to the episodic caregivers. Some of the long distance caregivers have been seen to stay close to the houses of their relatives and provide care.
A typical caregiver within the United States is a 48 year old woman with basic college education and spends more than 20 hours per week providing unpaid care to her near and dear relatives. However, as mentioned by National Research Council (2010), in 90 % of the cases the caregivers should have passed high school.
The informal care has been found to be particularly useful in providing care to patient suffering from progressive neurodegenerative disorder (Bergin & Mockford, 2016). As mentioned by Salin, Kaunonen, & Astedt-Kurki (2013), provision of specialist training to the carers can help in improving the quality of the support and care services. It has been found that the caregivers often suffered from additional stressor burden seeing their near and dear ones suffer from chronic illness (Shiba, Kondo & Kondo, 2016). In this respect, support from some of the additional social channels can help in improving the overall mental well being of the support service provider.
There had been additional studies, which have evaluated the combinatorial working of the healthcare professional or the nurses with the family members for care of the elderly. As mentioned by Salin, Kaunonen & Astedt-Kurki (2013), the nurses and the informal carer became friends who were seen to share mutual affection. In the long run the nurses were also seen to become a part of the patient’s family which further improved the quality of care.
Recommendation for nursing practices
The informal carer lacked sufficient experience with handling and management of caseloads. Therefore, they should be guided by a formally trained nurse, which also helps in controlling the development of stress in the informal carer. Additionally, it helps in ensuring that sufficient precautionary measures are provided to the patient in times of need.
Conclusion
The current assignment studies the aspect of informal nursing care and its importance in providing support to the chronically ill patients. It has been seen that most of people are comfortable and stress upon receiving care services within the premises of their homes. Additionally, the cost of the hospitals also makes it difficult for the patients to afford them. However, sufficient care needs to be taken that adequate resources and help are provided to the informal carers.
References
Bergin, S., & Mockford, C. (2016). Recommendations to support informal carers of people living with motor neurone disease. British journal of community nursing, 21(10), 518-524.
Elsa, V. (2015). Informal Family Caregiver Burden in Elderly Assistance and Nursing Implications. Ann Nurs Pract, 2(1), 1017.
National Research Council. (2010). Informal Caregivers in the United States: Prevalence, Caregiver Characteristics, and Ability to Provide Care,55-65.
Salin, S., Kaunonen, M., & Åstedt-Kurki, P. (2013). Nurses’ perceptions of their relationships with informal carers in institutional respite care for older people. Nursing research and practice, 2013,165-225.
Shiba, K., Kondo, N., & Kondo, K. (2016). Informal and Formal Social Support and Caregiver Burden: The AGES Caregiver Survey. Journal of Epidemiology, 26(12), 622–628. https://doi.org/10.2188/jea.JE20150263
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