Healthcare service provision, which grew in magnitude considering the technological advancements and innovations accompanied by evolving illnesses, is involving. The world is currently at a standstill as countries handle the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that changed how people operate due to measures to curb the spread. Nurses are part of the frontline workers in the fight against the highly contagious disease, with the witnessed adversities becoming an eye-opener on nurses' mental and physical well-being. In response to the situation, self-care for nurses is a significant trend impacting the profession and improving service delivery.
Nursing has apparent similarities and intrinsic differences with professionals involved in healthcare service provision making their mandate involving. Nursing focuses on offering medical care to individuals or families and, in some cases, communities to realize optimal health, including attaining, maintaining, or recovering ideal life status. It is in tandem with the mandate of other professionals within the health care sector who provide their services to ensure recipients' proper well-being. Despite the similarity, nurses have a wider scope of practice involving multiple specialties accompanied by prescription authority in differing levels. In line with other professionals in the health care sector, nurses provide their services guided by principles of physicians that shapes the profession's image to the public as care providers. However, in various jurisdictions and in a variety of settings, nurses have the leeway to practice independently. The profession transformed, since the postwar era, and continues to change in the contemporary space necessitating diversification to meet advancements and demand for specialized credentials with changes in conservative measures. Therefore, nurses' jurisdiction is involving considering the broad scope alongside the ever-changing professional environment.
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In the contemporary space, healthcare services delivery developed into a highly demanding field necessitating nurses to infuse their operations with other professionals in the health industry. As the world transforms vis-à-vis technological advancements and innovations, so does tools within the medical sector that help provide individuals with proper health. Handling such devices demands the expertise of different professionals with a similar goal of improving individuals' well-being. Nurses in their workstations, thereby developing care plans as they collaborate with others, including the patient alongside family members, to effectively treat illnesses and improve life quality. In many regions like America, advanced practice nurses diagnose health issues, which helps them diagnose patients and prescribe medications. They equally provide therapies to facilitate proper health restoration. Nurses' collaborative efforts inform a multidisciplinary health care team that coordinates service delivery, which involves other medical practitioners and dietitians, among others. Interdependent provision of care may equally involve nursing professionals or physicians. Such requirements in the medical sector assist nurses in the contemporary space facilitating efficient service delivery. Therefore, the current space has a demanding environment, necessitating collaborative efforts.
Today, nurses and their services are extensively appreciated globally as they provide services to patients as frontline workers in the coronavirus pandemic. The current covid-19 widespread necessitated changes in how the people around the world operate. The epidemic is a respiratory illness that originated from China, mainly transmitted from an infected individual to another through droplets from coughs, sneezes, or exhales (Smith et al., 2020). The non-infected acquire it through inhaling the virus, especially when near the affected or the droplets gaining access to body openings (like eyes, nose, or mouth). The pandemic has many nations at a go-slow due to the recommendations to minimize the highly contagious spread, including regularly washing hands, social distancing, and using protective gear like masks when in public. Nurses currently are frontline healthcare workers working around the clock to ensure patients suffering from the disease acquire proper care. They equally sensitize the public to provide a flattened curve. The incapacitation coronavirus causes those ailing alongside the worrying death tolls to explain the unwavering dedication of nations worldwide working in unison with medical professionals to mitigate the adverse effects. Therefore, the ongoing covid-19 pandemic has the nurses preoccupied.
As nurses serve to handle the ongoing coronavirus pandemic adversities, they place themselves at high risk. The novel illness had many people suffering from common symptoms such as fever, dry cough, and exhaustion. The unavailability of a vaccine necessitating remedies involving mitigating specific symptoms' adverse effects makes the contemporary situation more concerning (Auerbach & Miller, 2020). Frontline healthcare service providers suffer the turmoil of watching patients succumb to death or wallow in a miasma of pain due to critical conditions. It becomes more exhausting when colleagues get the disease and suffer. The culpability of acquiring the illness draws the issue concerning personal protective equipment (PPEs) where some proved defective while there were global shortages during some spans. In respective countries, nurses, alongside other health workers, develop public health policies that can protect the masses from acquiring the disease. They equally prevent health professionals who face a high risk of handling ill patients from obtaining covid-19. The health departments for all governments equally contribute to the efforts by ensuring the public adheres to the recommendations and providing sufficient funds to meet the demands for medical service providers. Therefore, the ongoing highly contagious coronavirus widespread places nurses at high risks leading to personal adverse effects.
With the growing numbers of those acquiring the disease and deaths accompanied by the threat's realness, nurses face personal slow-downs such as burnout and stress. As mentioned earlier, the pandemic is a tricky one considering the lack of an effective treatment method, such as a vaccine. Usually, offering treatment services is a demanding job proportional to the severity of an illness. Nurses witness success in their diagnosis and medical prescriptions; however, they fail in some instances, and a patient gets into a critical state or, in the most adverse circumstances, dies. In the ongoing adverse situation, nurses have to serve masses handicapped by the shortages in PPEs, beds, and ventilators, among other tools necessary to mitigate the adversities of covid-19 (Smith et al., 2020). Their current predicament is more demanding than before, which bears the high potential to materialize exhaustion. Nurses equally offer their services as frontline workers, and as they treat many patients who being sick renders incapacitated with lack of an effective remedy, they face mental torture. Seeing fellow health professionals whom they worked with for long equally succumb to coronavirus adversities facilitates the turmoil. Lastly, some governments fail to meet nurses' demands to protect citizens and frontline workers, which compounds stress as they deliver on their mandate. Therefore, nurses witness burnout and stressful situations facilitated by the devastating effects of the current novel coronavirus spread and impact.
The ongoing global adverse situation conceptualizes self-care for nurses, which involves vast operations to keep the mind and body well-functioning as the most significant trend impacting the profession. Nurses training factors the adverse mental effects that may arise when they provide services to those in need. As trained caregivers, they know how to handle terrible situations whereby adversities affect patients; however, in most cases, nurses get deep in their jurisdiction. As humans, they forget about themselves. Self-care is an answer to the probable adverse effects by ensuring physical, mental, and spiritual well-being for the caregivers (Crane & Ward, 2016). The remedy involves multiple aspects such as nutrition, sleep, exercise, and in other cases, different meditation forms. Firstly, nurses must ensure they consume suitable meals and stay away from drugs and substance abuse that may hinder their service delivery. Secondly, medical professionals require adequate rest, especially after delivering on their mandate. Thirdly, there are plenty of exercise forms, short-term and long-term or easy and tedious, that nurses can choose from, such as hitting the road. Lastly, medical professionals have a vast range of meditation activities to choose from, like yoga and listening to meditative music. Self-care for nurses, with extensive activities to explore, is therefore currently significant.
Self-care for nursing is a significant trend recommended by the American Nurses Association (ANA) in its Code of Ethics with high potential to improve service delivery. Quality of care is essential for nurses, which relates to other professions that require impeccable work effort for maximum output and super nominal returns. When health professionals undergo stress, fatigue, and burnout, it raises the potential to make errors, which materializes high costs to patients, the practicing medic, and healthcare organizations. Self-care reduces the chances of the aspects mentioned above from occurring, thereby ensuring the nurse's ability to issue quality care. As mentioned earlier, as nurses go around their working environment, the exposure to adversities and high risk may lead to traumatic effects that may occur without their realization. The ANA Code of Ethics recognizes the need for improved service delivery, which explains the self-care recommendation. According to Sinclair (2020), the ANA Code of Ethics fifth provision states, "the moral respect that nurses extend to all human beings extends to oneself as well: the same duties that we owe to others we owe to ourselves." They propose promoting health and safety, preserving character wholeness accompanied by integrity, maintaining competence, and propagate personal and professional growth. Therefore, the significant trend (self-care) in the nursing field has great potential to improve service delivery, which explains its consideration in the ANA Code of Ethics.
Self-care in nursing is a significant trend in the contemporary age transcending to the future, fortifying it as an actual responsibility for the profession's benefit. 2020 was an eye-opener on the necessity of making self-care a top priority. Self-care for nurses has a connection with much research and data concerning physical and mental strain witnessed in the nursing field. Global healthcare leaders are taking the initiative to handle the devastating effects of tending to the ill effectively. They are working in unison with respective health departments to mitigate the growing issue concerning nurses succumbing to mental pressure and torture primarily as frontline workers in the fight against Covid-19. The team of health workers acknowledges and treats self-care as an actual responsibility to improve service delivery. The significant trend for nursing evokes empathy and compassion, which is necessary for the profession. The more taxed a nurse feels when working, the higher probability of providing the mentioned aspects suffers. The probable adverse effects explain the need for self-care, which transcends from an individual to an organization by improving the working environment. The net impact involves complementing operations by other medical professionals, which facilitates high-quality care provision. Self-care is a responsibility in the nursing field for patients seeking services, colleagues, and the medical environment. It may differ for every nurse demanding an ideal self-care plan, which will help as the future will have care demands growth.
Self-care for nurses is a significant trend impacting the medical profession in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, whose devastating effects have a similar ripple effect on frontline workers' mental and physical stature. Exercise, sleep, and meditation, among other tools, can improve the situation for the professionals, as leaders in the medical field are working round the clock to enhance the current predicament of nurses. Self-care will positively impact the nursing profession and have a similar effect on the medical environment, accommodating other healthcare professionals, patients, and health organizations.
References
Auerbach, J., & Miller, B. F. (2020). COVID-19 exposes the cracks in our already fragile mental health system. American Journal of Public Health, 110 (7), 969-970.
Crane, P. J., & Ward, S. F. (2016). Self-healing and self-care for nurses. AORN journal , 104 (5), 386-400.
Oates , J. (2018). What keeps nurses happy? implications for workforce well-being strategies. Nursing Management (2014+), 25 (1), 34.
Sinclair, C. (2020). Developing and revising the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists: key differences from the American Psychological Association code. Ethics & Behavior , 30 (4), 249-263.
Smith, M. J., Upshur, R. E. G., & Emanuel, E. J. (2020). Publication ethics during public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. American Journal of Public Health, 110 (7), 947-948.
