Critical Analysis Paper

Introduction

Transition of newly graduated registered nurses to practice is always a challenge as the new graduate nurses strive to deliver safe care in the midst of the heavy workloads and the added responsibility for patient care (Hussein et al 2017, p.2). The added responsibilities in the busy nursing practice require the new graduates to have attributes and skills in essential in nursing practice. Accordingly, the focus of this paper is to identify key features of belongingness, emotional intelligence, resilience and communication. The paper will then examine how the newly registered nurse can utilize these attributes and concepts in their nursing practice. Finally, the paper will examine how these concepts can support delivery of person-centred health care.

Explanation and Examples of Concepts

The concept of belongingness refers to the personal and contextually mediated experience that develops in accordance with the level to which a personal feels and experiences acceptance, security, respect, and appreciation by a specific group as well as the connection with the group, and the degree to which the individual’s values correspond to the group’s professional values (Ashktorab et al 2017, p.222). Belongingness is normally perceived as an essential factor when it comes to stress, self-esteem, motivation, and satisfaction in clinical setting (Ashktorab et al 2017, p.222). For example, new graduate nurses who experience a sense of belongingness during practice are more active and have high level of motivation in their practice (Qalehsari et al 2017, p. 5545).

The concept of emotional intelligence is defined as the interconnected emotional and social skills that influence how an individual understands and expresses themselves, relations, and how well an individual copes with everyday demands (Cleary et al 2018, p.112). Emotional intelligence influences cognition and cognition plays an important role in decision making; these decisions in nursing practice affect patients and health outcomes and hence this indicates the importance of emotional intelligence in nursing practice. This is supported by Raghubi (2018, p.127) who explains that emotional intelligence is affects patient care decisions, professional inter-relationships, as well as affects the intrapersonal level of healthcare providers.

Resilience refers to the ability to overcome negative experiences and adversity and the learning experience that comes with it. Factors associated with resilience include; adaptability, optimism, flexibility, resourcefulness, hopefulness, confidence, and self-efficacy (Thomas & Revell 2016, p.457). Resilience attributes include psychosocial attributes; how a person adapts after facing adversity; and innate resilience that involves motivational factors after the adversity (Thomas & Revell 2016, p.457). Resilience is important in nursing because nursing practice involves so many challenges and changes.

Communication is defined as the exchange of information, feelings, ideas, and thoughts among individuals either verbally, written, body language or any other means. Therapeutic communication involves communication between healthcare teams and nurses, as well as patients and their families (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou 2014, p.67). Some essential communication skills include: active listening, empathy, ability to decode body language, openness and honesty. Effective communication is fundamental in performing accurate, consistent, and reliable nursing work, which ensures the patient’s satisfaction, as well as protection of the healthcare provider. Effective communication during care provision needs an understanding of the patients and their expressed experiences (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou 2014, p.66).

Person-Centred Care and Its Principles

According to Goodwin (2016, p.66) person-centered care refers to the type of care where the values and preferences of individual guide all elements of their healthcare, supportive of their realistic health/life goals. Government of South Australian (2016, p.3) further explains that person-centered care establishes a partnership among healthcare providers, patients, and their families to make sure that decisions take into consideration the preferences, needs, and wants of the patient; the patient also takes part in their own care. Accordingly, in nursing practice person-centered care involves delivering care while considering the values, needs and preferences of the patients, involving the patient and their carers/family in care provision, shared decision-making, and well as ensuring that the physical, social and psychosocial needs are catered for (Delaney 2018, p.120).

Person-centered care requires collaboration between healthcare practitioners, patients, and their families. The inter-professional team is supposed to be flexible and adapt to changes in accordance with the patient’s health status, situation, care, as well as life goals. This is supported by Goodwin (2016, p.16) who provides that person-centered care is supported by an inter-professional team and the patient is also a central team member

Person-centered care respects the preferences and expressed wants of patients and this means patients and their families are actively involved in decision making regarding treatment. The information provided by the patient and the family is used in guiding care delivery and hence their wishes are integrated in care indicated patients’ involvement in their care (Government of South Australian 2016, p.3).

Person-centered care incorporates information, communication, and health literacy/education where patients and their families are educated and always informed about their health and their care. In addition, person-centered care supports provision of comfortable, clean and adequately lit environment and facilities for the patient; this is because the care aims at creating an environment that fosters a sense of serenity, comfort and healing (Government of South Australian 2016, p.3).

Moreover, person‐centered care focuses on provision of timely, suitable and accessible care. This means there should be effective coordination to overcome any challenges associated with transitions between healthcare practitioners as well as across care settings. Finally, the person-centered care should be supported by the organizational leadership where patients and their families have opportunities to interact with the leadership directly (Goodwin 2016, p.17).

Application of the Concepts to Practice

The concept of belongingness is perceived as a vital for new graduate nurses and it is perceived as a connection between their experiences and practice. Belongingness impacts behavior of new graduate nurses, as well as their reasoning (Russell et al 2016, p.450). For instance, when new graduate nurses feel that they belong, they are likely to be more motivated in their practice. On the other hand, lack of belongingness can result to worry, emotional stress and isolation which may negatively impact their practice.

Belongingness is important in enabling new graduate nurses to be proactive in their practice by feeling confident and safe to take the lead in delivery of patient-centered care (Levett-Jones et al 2016, p.10). For instance, person-centered care involves team-work and collaboration. Accordingly, new graduate nurses can use the concept of belongingness by being active team members and by providing input during care delivery. This can ensure their contribution to the team which facilitates provision of person-centered care.

The concept of belongingness can be a motivating factor to new graduate nurses to deliver person-centered care. This is because belongingness has been shown to instill confidence and to be a motivating factor for new graduate nurses during care delivery (Levett-Jones et al 2016, p.12). Therefore, when nurses feel they belong, they can confidently and promptly provide person-centered care. For instance, such nurses are likely to be confident in incorporating preferences and expressed needs of patients and families in the treatment regimen assertively.

Emotional intelligence involves various non-cognitive qualifications and competencies that assist people to cope and handle everyday demands and stressors (Johnson 2015, p.180).  Emotional intelligence has been shown to be vital for effective practice, and especially in regard to delivery of person-centered care.  Accordingly, new graduate nurses can use emotional intelligence to understand and control their emotions during delivery of care.  Additionally, new graduate nurses can apply emotional intelligence in understanding the patients and tailoring the care plan in accordance to the patients’ preferences (Cleary et al 2018, p.114).

Person-centered care requires healthcare providers to respect the preferences and needs of the patients and their families. Therefore, new graduate nurses can use their emotional intelligence skills to try and understand the needs and wishes of patients to ensure the care provision suits patients’ preferences (Goodwin 2016, p.16).  In addition, person-centered care involves team work and collaboration of different care providers, the patient and the family. Therefore, a new graduate nurse would need emotional intelligence to different with the multidisciplinary team as well as the patients, and the family. For instance, during collaboration and teamwork with different individuals some conflicts may arise. A new graduate nurse would need emotional intelligence skills to be able to handle conflicts that normally arise when numerous people work together. Moreover as aforementioned, person-centered care integrates comprehensive communication and patient education; therefore, new graduate nurses can use emotional intelligence when communicating and educating patients (Goodwin 2016, p.16).. Finally, emotional intelligence with provide the nurse with the ability to respond to the emotional concerns of the patients is essential in ensuring the health and well-being of the person.

Resilience is another essential concept in nursing practice. Resilience among nurses is a personalized development process that occurs by using individual protective factors to successfully navigate through stress and adversities associated with nursing practice (Thomas & Revell 2016, p.458). Cumulative successes in resilience lead to improved coping abilities. Person-focused care is normally comprehensive and involves dealing with all problems in order to maintain competence. Accordingly, a new graduate nurse can use resilience skills to cope with the demands present in person-centered care. For instance, there are various challenges associated with delivery of person-centered care to patients and hence new graduate nurses can use resilience to overcome these challenges and bounce back.  As Starfield (2014, p.65) further explains person-centered care requires healthcare providers to maintain long-term relationships with their patients. Maintaining these relationships is sometimes perceived as an uphill task by healthcare providers especially when there are no specific disease episodes that require such patients to visit healthcare facilities. Accordingly, a new graduate nurse would require resilience as a skill to be able to persevere and continue maintaining long-term relationships with such patients.

Effective communication is a fundamental competence during healthcare delivery. Through communication, patients are able to communicate their symptoms, concerns, fears, and their expectations to the healthcare providers (Hafskjold et al 2015, p.5). On the other hand, healthcare providers explore the situation of the patients through active listening and asking questions. Communication is a key cornerstone in person-centered care. This is because effective communication is essential for the healthcare provider to be able to adequately understand the patient’s wishes and their expressed needs (Hafskjold et al 2015, p.5). Accordingly, a new graduate nurse can utilize communication skills to explore the patient’s situation through active listening and asking questions. Additionally, the new graduate nurse can utilize communication skills in discussing care and treatment options with patients, and at the same time providing the patients and their families with all required information. The new graduate nurse can utilize communication skills to empower patients and at the same time improve their health and quality of life.

The new graduate nurse can also use communication skills and deliver person-centered communication. With person- centered communication, the nurse will be able to give attention to the whole person by sharing information and decisions; provision of empowering, empathic, compassionate care; as well as being sensitive to the needs of the patients (Hafskjold et al 2015, p.5).  Furthermore, active listening and empathy are vital communication skills. Accordingly, the new graduate nurse can use these communication skills to understand the concerns of the patients, their pain and suffering; by understanding, the nurse will have the desire to help the patient.

Finally, person-centered care involves collaboration and teamwork between multidisciplinary team members that include different healthcare providers, the patient and their families (Hafskjold et al 2015, p.4).  Therefore, communication skills are fundamental during delivery of person-centered care.  The new graduate nurse can thus utilize communication skills to communicate with different team members, the patients and the family. Therapeutic relationship is a basic component of person-centered care.  Effective therapeutic relationship requires good communication and hence the nurse should utilize communication skills to ensure a good patient-nurse relationship is maintained.

Conclusion

The paper has identified how a newly registered nurse can use concepts of belongingness, emotional intelligence, resilience and communication to facilitate delivery of person-centered care. Person-centered care is a concept that addressed the needs of the person for information, and perceives the patients a whole person, improves therapeutic relationship while promoting concordance and improving. The newly registered nurse can use concept of belongingness to be proactive, confident and motivated to deliver person-centered care. The concept of emotional intelligence can be used to understand the patient, especially their wishes, values, preferences, and their expressed needs and thus deliver the well-suited care. On the other hand, resilience would enable the newly graduated nurse to handle the challenges that are present in person-centered care. Finally, communication skill will be essential in communicating and maintaining therapeutic relationship with patients, their families as well as in maintaining effective communication with the multidisciplinary team.