Giving a voice to patient experiences through the insights of pragmatism

As a philosophical position, pragmatism can be critiqued to distinguish truth only with methods that bring about desired results, predominantly with scientific enquiry. The article hopes to dismiss this oversimplification and propose that within mental health nursing, enquiry enlightened by pragmatism can be anchored to methods helping to tackle genuine human problems. Whilst pragmatists suggest one reality exists, fluctuating experiences and shifting beliefs about the world can inhabit within; hence, pragmatists propose reality has the potential to change. Moreover, pragmatism includes being cognisant of what works to whom reality concerns, making reality context-driven, with a view to understand how actions shape experiences so what is generated has usefulness. Hence, it somewhat follows pragmatism can inform mental health nursing, after all, nursing is a discipline of action, and awareness is needed in how actions produce experiences that patients find helpful. Given the principles of recovery are preferably adopted in mental health care, the paper will explore how pragmatism can help nurses move towards that goal; specifically, with patients voicing their experiences. This is because like pragmatism, recovery subscribes to hope that reality can progress, and through meaningful experiences and beliefs, patients have expertise about personal difficulties alongside how life may flourish, despite mental illness.     

Moral reasoning as a catalyst for cultural competence and culturally responsive care

The importance of developing cultural competence among healthcare professionals is well recognized. However, the widespread reports of insensitivity and deficiencies in care for culturally diverse patients illuminate the need to review how cultural competence development is taught, learnt and applied in practice. Unless we can alter the ‘hearts and minds’ of practising nurses to provide the care that they know they should, culturally insensitive care will continue operating in subtle ways. This paper explores the ideas behind nurses’ actions and omissions when caring for culturally diverse patients and proposes the need to examine cultural competence development through a moral reasoning lens. Examining cultural competence development through a moral reasoning lens can help empower nurses, whilst nurturing commitment and courage to providing quality care that meets the needs of culturally diverse patients. The model of morality provides a framework that explores how moral motivation and behaviour occur and can provide a vehicle for critically examining the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to provide culturally responsive care.     

Who can give ‘spiritual care’? The management of spiritually sensitive interactions between nurses and patients

kevern p. (2012) Journal of Nursing Management  20, 981–989
Who can give ‘spiritual care’? The management of spiritually sensitive interactions between nurses and patients Aims This article considers the purpose of contemporary ‘spiritual care’ in order to help managers make informed decisions about its appropriate delivery in a clinical context. Background Although there are national policies in place concerning spiritual care, surveys indicate that nurses are reluctant to engage with the spiritual needs of patients. Evaluation A consideration of the character of spiritual care indicates the need to take account of the context of contemporary Western society. A model drawn from the social psychology of religion is used to analyse the different types of nurse–patient interaction available in the provision of spiritual care. Key Issues Although religious and spiritual commitments can vary widely, they are subject to the same pressures in a secular and pluralist social context. This enables some general guidelines to be developed. Conclusions Effective spiritual care requires a consideration of both the patient’s and the nurse’s implicit and explicit religious commitments. Implications for nursing management Nurse managers need to take account of the personal commitments of nurses when directing them to offer spiritual care. This article offers a diagnostic tool for deploying nurses in an appropriate way.     

What matters to users of services? An explorative study to promote shared decision making in health care

Background Involving service users and carers in decisions about their health care is a key feature of health‐care practice. Professional health and social care students need to develop skills and attributes to best enable this to happen. Aims The aims were to explore service user and carer perceptions of behaviours, attributes and context required to enable shared decision making; to compare these perceptions to those of students and academic staff with a view to utilizing the findings to inform the development of student assessment tools. Methods A mixed methods approach was used including action learning groups (ALG) and an iterative process alongside a modified Delphi survey. Participants The ALGs were from an existing service user and carer network. The survey was sent to sixty students, sixty academics and 30 service users from 16 different professional disciplines, spanning four Universities in England. Results The collaborative enquiry process and survey identified general agreement that being open and honest, listening, showing respect, giving time and being up to date were important. The qualitative findings identified that individual interpretation was a key factor. An unexpected result was an insight into possible insecurities of students. Conclusions The findings indicate that distilling rich qualitative information into a format for student assessment tools could be problematic as the individual context could be lost, it is therefore proposed that the information could be better used as a learning rather than assessment tool. Several of those involved identified how they valued the process and found it beneficial.     

The impact of prostate cancer on men's everyday life

Prostate cancer impacts on the daily lives of men, particularly their physical and emotional health, relationships and social life. This paper highlights how men cope with disease and treatment and the strategies they employ to manage their diagnosis alongside daily life. Twenty‐seven men were interviewed at different stages in their disease pathway: nine men prior to radiotherapy, eight men at 6–8 months post radiotherapy and 10 men at 12–18 months post radiotherapy. A grounded theory approach was used to collect and analyse the data. Regardless of the point at which they were interviewed four areas emerged as important to the men: the pathway to diagnosis; the diagnosis; the impact of prostate cancer and its treatment on daily life; and living with prostate cancer. Prostate cancer was diagnosed using the prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) test, rectal examination and biopsy. Many men did not understand the consequences of a high PSA reading before they undertook the test. Painful investigative biopsies were viewed as the worst part of the disease experience. Radiotherapy was considered less invasive than other treatments, although preparatory regimes were associated with stress and inconvenience. Men used various strategies to deal with treatment‐induced threats to their masculinity in the long term.