Health and Illness Narratives for Nursing - myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theHealth and Illness Narrativesfor Nursing Professionals. Answer: During the course of treatment, nursing professionals often feel the need to know their clients at depth and also to comprehend their historical, familial and social contexts so that they can provide a prepare plan for holistic care. It is often important for nurses to listen to illness narratives as that gives them the scope to know the stories as well as the narratives they tell (McAllister et al., 2015). These also provide them with contextual detail and also person-revealing characteristics which make them understand the individuals in a better way. Over the year, the form of illness narratives have become the culturally congruent ways of ascertaining as well as understanding the different experiences which the patients have gone through (Laird et al., 2015). Over the years, researchers have found that this process helps the patients to express them in a more complete pattern in comparison to that of the yes/no algorithmic process in conversing with the clients. These methods hel p the patients to elicit the stories which in turn help to provide proper illustrations of the different types of social contexts of different events that the patients have gone through. This in turn helps to implicitly provide the answers to questions of several feelings as well as meanings (Baker, 2015). In the present day, it has been already seen that the model of bio-psycho-social model of assessment has been preferred by healthcare organizations that the biomedical model of care. According to WHO, a disease should never be taken as a condition where the human being is either having microbial infections or are suffering from physiological failures. A nurse who provided care to with this model of assessment can make the patient recover from the disorder but will never be able to give him a quality life unless the nurse assess the psychological as well as the social context of the patient. The present researchers are of the opinion that biopsychosocial model of care helps in developing a detailed assessment of the patient and thereby help in developing a treatment plan which involves not only interventions for physical development but also for modification of social and psychological; aspects. As a result the patient can lead a quality life (Westin, Sundler Berglund, 2015). In orde r to develop such an understanding, the narratives are of extremely important which helps the nurse to understand the psychosocial as well as the social backgrounds of the patients. Often the stories reflect that all the aspects are interlinked and therefore they result in combined effect on the patients ailment. Moreover the narratives of the patients often help to include details which might seem minute to them but in the long run help the nurses to find cues about the symptoms and hence makes the development of intervention plan easier (Rejno, Berg Danielson, 2014). A large number of factors can affect the patient narratives and the nurses should critically analyze each and every statement mentioned in the narrative to develop an overall scenario. Often a number of sociological factors are suggested by the researchers to impact on the patients narratives. Often while discussing the narratives, different issues are depicted by the patients of whom the cues that give information about the social structures of the patients lives play big importance (Buckley, McCormanck Ryan, 2014). Often patients are seen to grow and develop themselves according to certain guidelines fixed by the society and whenever they are not being able to follow those rules an customs, they are disregarded by the society and are often excluded. A small example can be noted in this scenario. A patient who has developed depression would come to the clinic and discuss different interventions that would help him to get over depression. In such kind of narratives, social influence s are often heard by the nurses where the patients suggests that how he has been stigmatize by the society who have excluded him from the social gatherings (Condelius Anderson, 2015). Such a society greatly criticizes the patient when he tries to visit a healthcare professional to get over his symptoms. In fear of being stigmatized, such a patient avoids visiting professionals or they explain their narratives in ways which does not let them speak out their hearts as the matter of stigmatization haunt them from within. Hence, such narratives help in clearly understanding how the patients social surrounding is affecting his health. Often cultural factors also affect the persons narratives. It is seen that patients who are coming from ethnic backgrounds often face various issues in expressing their narratives to the healthcare professionals as they feel that the professionals will never be able to understand their culture properly. Hence they fear that the interventions they would pro vide will not be according to their cultural preferences. They have the fear of facing cultural biasness form healthcare professionals and therefore their narratives are modified them in way which do not let them explain their issues properly. They become cautious and such cautiousness prevents them from opening their hearts out to the professionals. Therefore in such a scenario, the main essence of practicing a narrative style treatment procedure gets interrupted. Over the course of development of every individual, a historical, cultural as well as sociological factors tend to mend an individuals way of thinking and these aspects get well reflected when the patient discussed them with the nurses (Stone Levett-Jones, 2014). A person who may complain about severe headache will also state about how his family history contain brain cancers and therefore his narrative would be tend towards expression of similar symptoms. However, the nurse who would be there documenting his narratives should have the critical analyzing power to consider brain cancer as a tentative cause but she should never be blown away by the narrative as this factors being the only one factor that is leading to headache. She should have the power to carry on differential diagnosis to come to a conclusion. Similarly, the effects of cultural preferences will always be expressed in the narratives while the patient discusses his issues. It is obvious for an aboriginal citizen to take tobacco smoking as a part of their lifestyle and culture and therefore they would never consider it as harmful. The nurse should closely follow the patients narratives to understand how his attitude is governed by the different factors. An immigrant patients thinking will always be governed by the various stigmas they face and the ways they are treated by the citizens of the nation. Therefore the narratives may also contain clues about the emotional cues faced by them which the nurse need to document. This will help h er to propose intervention that will never clash with the autonomy as well as dignity of the patients. A narrative is one of the best methods for the nurses to collect information about the student. This is said so because nurses often tend to get clues about many important things which directly or indirectly affect the health of the patients. It might seem very small for the patient but might be very helpful for the nurse to develop a visual image for the cause of the disorder. This can be explained by an example (Korhonen Kangasniemi, 2014). A patient is attending the clinic with severe stomach ache and is possessing diarrhea like symptoms. Often during his narratives, he suggests that he often has the love for travelling and visits many places all over the world. He goes for camping and mountainous adventures as well. Although the patient might think that this have no effects with his stomach ache but in the real cause, it may help the nurse to understand that his drinking and eating habits are not hygienic as he cannot consume hygienic food everywhere. This helps the nurse to lin k the different clues and come to conclusion with proper interventions. Besides, gaining important information from the narratives, the nurses also can develop an idea about the patients personal preferences and understand his liking as well as dislikes. While telling the story, the patients often express their own concerns regarding their health, their perceptions about healthcare, their dilemmas, their cultural preferences and many others. Hence, all these should be noted down by the nurses and her intervention plan would be in such a way that she can practice all the important principles or beneficence and non-maleficence at the same time of paying importance to autonomy as well as dignity of the patients. Thirdly, the narratives described by the patients also give the nurse good information about the health literacy of the patients. This can be explained by an example. When a patient is narrating that he has huge body weight and wants to reduce them but at the same time cannot u nderstand why he needs to cut off his meal on burgers, it becomes easier for the nurse to develop an understanding that he needs health education. Often proper health education is important in many cases of chronic disorders and the nurses with the help of narratives can gain insight about the patients knowledge and how much education is required to make them adhere with the interventions (Castro Andrews, 2017). From the entire discussion, it is quite clear that narratives of patients have many positive aspects like expression of important cues, expression of social and cultural preferences, health literacy levels and many others. All these can be used by nurses effectively to develop their intervention plan properly and hence will have positive impacts on the patients health. References: Baker, C. (2015). 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