Comfort care: a framework for perianesthesia nursing.

The Theory of Comfort and its application to the specialty of perianesthesia nursing are presented in this article. Comfort Theory is relevant to this specialty because patient comfort is cited as a goal in its standards of care and is an established value for many nurses in their perianesthesia practice. The technical definition of comfort, developed from reviews of multidisciplinary literature on comfort and nursing literature on holism, is "the state of being strengthened by having needs for relief, ease, and transcendence met in 4 contexts of experience (physical, psychospiritual, sociocultural, and environmental)." (Kolcaba K. Adv Nurs Sci. 15:1-10, 1992). Because comfort has many interrelated aspects, interventions designed to enhance comfort in one aspect can have a larger effect on total comfort than expected. Particular emphasis is placed on interventions to treat anxiety, because this discomfort can be severe and can negatively affect physiologic function. Goals and comfort measures for each phase of perianesthesia care are presented, followed by application of Comfort Theory for research.