Dr. Kristen Swanson developed the Swanson's theory of caring. This theory focuses on caring for patients that have been through tough times such a loss of their loved ones. The theory can be applied in childbearing where it focuses on how the health practitioners deal with miscarriages and stillbirths that occur and how they help the affected patients and families to come into terms with the unfortunate occurrences. Many women, unfortunately, give birth to stillborn babies or undergo miscarriages and this prompted Swanson to come up with a theory on how to manage such patients (Smith, 2015). This theory is not only helpful to the mothers but also to the nurses since it teaches the nurses how to handle the bereaved patients by supporting them socially, physically and emotionally.
Swanson's theory has five care processes that are applied in caring for such mothers. They include knowing, doing for, enabling, maintaining belief and being with (Moffa, 2015). The being with care process entails offering emotional support to the patients. Doing for involves providing services to the patient in the same way that the patient would have done to herself. Enabling entails helping the bereaved patient to get through such a terrible situation of losing a child which is new to her. Knowing involves trying to comprehend the events that the patient has been through. Maintaining belief entails giving hope to the patient since faith is essential for the well-being of the patient (Hutti et al., 2015).
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These five care processes are applied in the caring of the bereaved patients. The way that the knowing process is implemented is through the healthcare provider striving to understand the patient's grief, giving time to the patient and the family, and listening when the patient wants to talk to someone about what she is experiencing. During application of this process, assumptions are not made, the focus is solely on the patient and there is thorough examination of the patient. The process of being with is being applied by the healthcare providers by them being emotional connected to the patients through touching them on their arms and hands, showing empathy to the patients and making them aware that the health workers feel and know exactly what they are going through. The application of this process requires that the healthcare practitioners are always there and the practitioners do not burden the patient with their problems. The doing for care process is being applied by the healthcare practitioners (Swanson, 2015).
The practitioners do this by ensuring that the patients are comfortable during their stay in the healthcare facility, offering food to them to ensure that they are getting enough nutrients, providing pericare to the patients and ensuring that the patients have their privacy. While doing things for the patient in a way that the patient would have done, the healthcare practitioners maintain the dignity of the patient (Moffa, 2015). The enabling process of helping the patients come to term with the tragic occurrence is applied through various ways. These include placing a leaflet at the door of the patient's room so that other healthcare practitioners are aware that the patient has been through tough times and so that they can come and comfort the patient while giving the patient hope (Kavanaugh et al., 2015).
The family members are also being requested to write encouraging quotes in a book which the patient reads continuously, and this enables the patient to get through the tough times. Enabling process application also involves the giving of alternatives and feedbacks (Bai, Swanson & Santacroce, 2015). The maintaining belief process is being applied by giving the patients various books on how to heal emotionally and mentally after such a tragic incident and also liaising with the counselors in the hospital to help the patient become optimistic. This process goes a long way in ensuring that the patient develops a positive attitude. Since enclosure is essential for the patients, the healthcare practitioners are using means such as letting the patients hold the babies who are born dead for a while, so that accept what has happened as part of the healing process.
Patient X underwent a miscarriage during her first trimester and was admitted. The patient was emotionally down and mentally distressed. The patient wanted to be left alone, and most of the times she was stressed. The nurses consulted among themselves and decided to play a part in the application of the five care processes of the patient. Some of the nurses asked the patient how she was feeling and what had occurred which resulted in the miscarriage. Some nurses asked the family members of the steps they had taken to ensure that the patient was on her way to healing emotionally, socially and mentally (Im, 2015). At the end of all these inquiries, the healthcare practitioners were able to help the patient in the healing process.
Child loss is a bitter pill to swallow especially for the women who were expectant and their families. It is hard for them to come to terms with the loss. It takes an extended period for the women to accept what has happened, and have hope that they will be able to conceive and have children in the future. The healthcare practitioners must help such mothers get through such stressful situations by using various approaches such as the one that was proposed by Dr. Kristen Swanson. The healthcare workers should ensure that all the five processes are fulfilled and that they work closely with the patient's family to help the patient through that terrible period. It is evident that for a patient to heal, it is not only the medication that the patient receives that is important but also the emotional, social and mental support.
References
Bai, J., Swanson, K., & Santacroce, S. (2015). Development of The Parent Caring Response Scoring System (p-caress) Using Swanson's Theory of Caring and Its Preliminary Reliability and Validity. Pediatric Blood & Cancer , 62 , S193.
Hutti, M. H., Polivka, B., White, S., Hill, J., Clark, P., Cooke, C., ... & Abell, H. (2016). Experiences of nurses who care for women after fetal loss. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing , 45 (1), 17-27.
Im, E. O. (2015). The current status of theory evaluation in nursing. Journal of advanced nursing , 71 (10), 2268-2278.
Kavanaugh, K., Roscigno, C. I., Swanson, K. M., Savage, T. A., Kimura, R. E., & Kilpatrick, S. J. (2015). Perinatal palliative care: Parent perceptions of caring in interactions surrounding counseling for risk of delivering an extremely premature infant. Palliative & supportive care , 13 (2), 145-155.
Moffa, C. (2015). Caring for novice nurses applying Swanson's theory of caring. International Journal for Human Caring , 19 (1), 63-65.
Smith, M. C., & Parker, M. E. (2015). Nursing theories and nursing practice . FA Davis.
Swanson, K. M. (2015). Kristen Swanson's theory of caring. In Nursing Theories and Nursing Practice (pp. 521-532). FA Davis Company, Philadelphia, PA.
