The Role of Hope in Nursing Practice

Introduction

Hope is an integral as well as protective factor of every human life. The concept of hope has a significant role in nursing practice and patient care. This assignment discusses regarding the concept of hope, its meaning and characteristics with the support of various literatures. In addition, relevance of hope related to the nursing practice and the barrier to use this concept in current practice will also be explored in this piece of work. Hope is one of the necessary quality of life and lies into what to be expected out -of life as well as what the meaning of life for us is. Therefore this task explored the measures to instill hope in patients to improve their quality of life.

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Definition:-

Hope is an essential aspect in health care practice because it is linked to individual’s experience and recovery. The definition of hope is differed according to each authors view as they have given different concept about hope. According to Sullivan (2008) hope as a complex multidimensional and dynamic, a potentially powerful factor in healing, adaptive coping, and achieving quality of life during times of illness and loss. Hope inspires the person to put his endless efforts to attain particular goal in life. Stephenson (1991) concluded that hope is a basic human response that is essential for life. Moreover, it is a major component of human being which helps to improve the quality of life. Hope plays a crucial role in reducing impact of disease in patients and relatives. Hope is one of the necessary traits of a successful life (Cassel, 2008). Thus, hope is internal forceful feeling of a person to achieve target in future. According to Hinds (1984) Hope is the degree to which an individual believes that a personal tomorrow exists and also it encourages the person towards the achievement of requirements. Adopting hopeful attitude is an essential part of the nurse role. Nurse should be trained in how to inspire hope in hopeless clients. It is considered very effective during the prognosis and treatment. According to Cornelius (2008) hope is multi dimensional part of religion energies provides comfort to individuals experiencing personal challenges. It mean hope is element of faith provide all comfort in the individuals life and challenge the personal experience. Hope is necessary for human life. Human beings have a possible future through expectations and participations. According to Clarke (2003) hope is essential and important feature for every person in their life. According to Li (2000) it is an important process to re-establishment or conservation of one’s fine living being. Moreover, hope has a power to lit a light of expectation in the patients and it can influence patient who are seriously or terminally ill as they think there is no hope and give awareness about how they live their lives. Nurses should give more importance to hope instead of hopelessness even in the patients. According to people’s conviction, everyone can lead a worth full life if they have hope even for the healthy as well as the ill persons. According to Moore (2005) hope is an intentional movement toward an object which can provide the maximum out come. . Hope was largely considered to be a positive concept that can make a difference to people lives and it also described as an experience, emotion or need. In addition, hope is an energy sourced from a sense of interconnectedness with the self, others and powers beyond the self (Clarke, 2003). There are many factors such as chronic serious illness or disability, a period of personal difficulty which helps to maintains powerful hope in their life. Thus, hope will help to meet any difficulties which come across and also helps to enhance the inner strength. Besides, hope is an emotional feeling and belief. Hope is characterized by an “intentional” movement a preexistent object, a movement that presupposed the hoping subject has perceived the hoped for object either through the sense, through an estimative faculty or through the intelligence. Hope and faith helps to attain the recognized goal and empower survivors to dynamically engage in rehabilitation. Further, hope can be considered as keystone of faster recovery of disease, even though, many authors mainly focusing the role of hope in rehabilitation stage of the patient.

Relevance Of The Concept To Practice:-

The concept of hope plays a vital role in the nursing practice, as it improves the spiritual well being and the quality of life, which are the meaningful dimensions of the patient’s life. Hope can be viewed as a holistic experience, which consists of three primary dimensions like personal, situational, and interpersonal. Hope is one of the obligatory factors in the survival of the patient conditions. According to Jevene and Maguire (1999) hope is a relevant idea for the nursing care and can be viewed on the basis of three extents, meaning, risk and caring. The research literature has recognized hope as an influence on effective coping during times of loss, suffering and uncertainty. Hopelessness is commonly associated with increase incidence of physical illness, depression and suicidal ideation (Carson et al, 1990; Hockey, 1993). Meanwhile, hope enhances well being and reduces the disease period. According to Henner (2006) medical intervention and maintaining hope is ethically appropriate when there is a reasonable chance that medical procedures will be effective and their out come will be meaningful in terms of patient’s life. Thus a timely and appropriate explanation of the medical procedures can encourage patient to develop hope that can assist him for wellbeing. Hope is both remedial and curable factor in patient care and treatment and it has also restorative effect on the patient health outcomes (Watson, 1979). Therefore, the concept of the hope has positive effect on the treatment process and the nurse can inspire hope in the patient by maintaining good rapport and giving relevant information about the disease condition. In addition, hope is considered as an essential psychological factor in the recovery; however, many individuals with severe mental illness frequently report feeling of hopelessness. In addition, According to the American Nurse Association (ANA, 2003) “Nursing is the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and the treatment of human response, and encourage hope in the care of individuals, families, communities and population”. Nurses play a vital role in patient care by enhancing hope as well as optimistic attitude throughout their life. . Moreover, nurse can provide optimal care to seriously ill patients especially in their area of duty. The relationship between patients and nurses were significantly related to instillation of hope. Various studies related hope explained that, both healthy and sick people necessitate hope since it helps everybody to look forward happily towards the future. Hope is illustrating as a basic human need and has a possibility of good out come for ourselves or someone to close us such as hoping for life over death. The light of prospect aids to remove hopelessness and show the importance of life. Hope is identified as an important part of recovery and nurses have a pivotal role in facilitating hope to patients and their families. Numerous barriers can be identified while instilling hope to the patients. The nurse has to overcome these barriers before inspiring hope to provide maximal care to the patient. The two most frequently cited hindrances were that the institution did not allow the nurses to change client care procedures and did not offer adequate time to provide appropriate care, ways or measures to put into practice. According to Funk et al.(1991) other barriers which prevents the use of concept in practice setting includes lack of time, motivation, confidence and negative attitude. These barriers need to be overcome through adequate communication, trustful relationship with patient and the family and adequate psychological support. The effective strategies to overcome these barriers will require a combined effort from the nurses by education, research, administration, and the clinical practice.

Conclusion:-

Hope is a multidimensional concept which strength our ideas and values. Hope is also an expectation of future that is good and is based upon a sense of personal ability, psychological well being and the meaning in life as well as a good judgment of the possible. This task assisted to get an awareness regarding the concept of hope as well as its characteristics. In addition, this assignment aided to know the relevance hope in nursing practices, various barriers occurs while instilling hope and the measures to overcome these barriers. To conclude, hope is an essential factor which assists all individual to improve their quality of life by enhancing confidence and positive attitude towards the future.