Assignment: Physiological Adaptation in the Nursing Practice
Assignment: Physiological Adaptation in the Nursing Practice
Physiological adaptation occurs in all living organisms and involves cells, tissues, and internal organs. In physiological adaptation, the cellular features, internal organs, alterations in the hormonal level, mood alterations, and other features enable humans to survive, adapt and respond to environmental changes. Preservation of the patient population’s physiological integrity was the topic selected from the Individual Student Comprehensive Assessment Trends. According to the NCLEX-RN examination blueprint, nurses promote physiological adaptation by managing and providing care for patients with acute, chronic, or life-threatening health conditions (RegisteredNursing, 2022). The purpose of this paper is to describe physiological assessment as per assessment performance and professional practice.
ORDER A CUSTOMIZED, PLAGIARISM-FREE Assignment: Physiological Adaptation in the Nursing Practice HERE
Good News For Our New customers . We can write this assignment for you and pay after Delivery. Our Top -rated medical writers will comprehensively review instructions , synthesis external evidence sources(Scholarly) and customize a quality assignment for you. We will also attach a copy of plagiarism report alongside and AI report. Feel free to chat Us
Importance
Physiological adaptation is essential to professional nursing practice since the nurse assesses a patient’s adaptation to illness and health modifications. In light of this, nurses assess patients for signs and symptoms of illnesses and apply knowledge of pathophysiology and nursing procedures to the care of patients with alterations in body systems. In addition, nurses monitor wounds for features of infection, provide care to patients with infectious illnesses, and provide patient education on self-management of their health. Physiological adaptation is significant to the patient population’s health because individuals’ adaptation level is influenced by environmental stimuli (Wang et al., 2020). Besides, physiological adaptation influences how patients cope with their health status and adapt to their impaired physical state. Failure to address physiological adaptation can contribute to a high workload for nurses due to increased patient readmissions, prolonged length of stay, and worsening health state of patients. Furthermore, it would adversely affect patients since they would face high complication rates, morbidity, poor quality of life, and high medical costs.
[elementor-template id="165244"]Healthcare Disparities, Inequalities, and Interventions
Failing to address physiological adaptation can affect all patient populations, from newborns to geriatric patients resulting in healthcare disparities. For patients with chronic illnesses, unresolved physiological adaptation can worsen their health outcomes. Karatepe et al. (2020) explain that chronic illnesses can result in constant physician exams and hospital stays owing to various symptoms that occur in the disease progress and process. One in every ten patients with chronic illnesses is readmitted due to maladaptation with therapy and has an average hospital stay of six days. The general, physical, and social adaptation levels of persons not staying at the hospital before being diagnosed with chronic illnesses were better than those experiencing repetitive stays.
Patients with chronic illnesses would further be affected by unresolved physiological adaptation since they would not receive the necessary health education on disease management. Patient education aims at helping the patient to change some elements of their health wellness, and illness. Therefore, patients with chronic diseases would lack the education which empowers them to make knowledgeable decisions about their desired care, treatments, and interventions (Karatepe et al., 2020). Inadequate patient education on self-care strategies can lead to healthcare disparities due to poor health outcomes in patients whose physiological adaptation was not resolved.
Living with a chronic illness greatly affects a patient’s physical, social, and psychological quality of life. Narrative nursing is the identified evidence-based solution to address healthcare disparities related to physiological adaptation. Jin et al. (2022) explain that reducing the negative emotional experience of patients with chronic illnesses can effectively enhance treatment compliance, alleviate complications, decrease mortality, prolong survival, and improve patients’ quality of life. It is considered a supplement to the association of humanized nursing services. Narrative nursing proposes that listening and understanding a patient’s story can enable the patient to recognize the significance of the reconstruction of life and disease (Jin et al., 2022). Thus, exploring a patient’s inner world and improving their psychotherapy programs, family resilience, and quality of life is recommended.
Legal and Ethical Considerations and Intervention Challenges
Legal and ethical implications can occur when addressing physiological adaptation concerning the patient’s right to autonomy and beneficence. The provider is required to obtain consent, and failure to do so can result in legal consequences, especially if the treatment interventions have adverse effects on the patient (Milliken, 2018). Besides, the provider has an ethical obligation to implement interventions that will promote better outcomes and not harm the patient. Thus, ethical implications may arise if interventions to promote physiological adaptation worsen a patient’s health.
The nurse can prevent ethical dilemmas by creating professional boundaries with every patient and reviewing the ANA Code of Ethics to determine if an action is ethical. Furthermore, legal implications can be avoided by involving patients in decision-making since it respects their autonomy and allows them to make decisions based on their treatment desires (Milliken, 2018). Efforts to address physiological adaptation can be inhibited by a low level of education, which has been associated with poor adaptation to diseases. Karatepe et al. (2020) found that the psychological adaptation level of people with knowledge of their disease was higher than that of uninformed people. Thus, health illiteracy is a potential challenge to successfully addressing physiological adaptation in nursing practice.
Participants and Interdisciplinary Approach
Physiological adaptation will be addressed by an interdisciplinary team comprising nurses, physicians, dietitians, and therapists. Nurses will provide nursing interventions like wound care, suctioning, and pulmonary hygiene, evaluate patients’ responses to corrective interventions and provide patient education. Physicians will assess patients for alterations in the body system and fluid and electrolyte imbalances and initiate pharmacological interventions (Shindo & Tadaka, 2020). The dietitian will assess patients’ nutritional status and develop a plan to meet dietary needs. Besides, the therapists will assess patients’ physical functioning and provide therapy interventions to improve mobility and functioning. Non-nursing members include dietitians and therapists who are vital in providing specialized nutrition and physical therapy care.
Quality Improvement
Addressing physiological adaptation benefits patients by improving health outcomes, evidenced by reduced disease complications and morbidities, resulting in an improved quality of life. This, in return, benefits nursing practice by reducing the workload caused by prolonged stays and readmissions (Shindo & Tadaka, 2020). Patient outcomes in the clinical setting can be improved by using clinical guidelines since they alleviate unjustifiable practice variation and improve the translation of research into practice. Implementing well-developed clinical guidelines significantly improves patient outcomes by enhancing the process of care. Nurses can increase their knowledge by engaging in professional development activities that equip nurses with skills to improve their practice and advance to a new role.
Conclusion
Physiological adaptation is significant to nursing practice since nurses conduct patient assessments and apply pathophysiology and nursing procedures knowledge in patient care for body systems alterations. Recurring hospital stays inhibit health services’ utilization cost-effectively and may alter the patient’s adaptation to the chronic illness in due time. Narrative nursing is a humanistic nursing approach that integrates the spirit of narrative psychotherapy and narrative medicine and is proposed as a solution to address the deficit in physiological adaptation. Addressing physiological adaptation matters to patients since it promotes better outcomes and improves the quality of life. It is also significant to nursing practice since it lowers workload giving nurses more time to provide quality patient care.
References
Jin, X., Liu, X., Xie, H., Yu, J., & Gu, D. (2022). Effect of Narrative Nursing on Family Resilience and Psychosocial Adaptation of Middle-Aged Patients with Breast Cancer. Evidence-based Complementary & Alternative Medicine (eCAM). https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/5499298
Karatepe, H., Atik, D., & Yuce, U. O. (2020). Adaptation With the Chronic Disease and Expectations from Nurses. Erciyes Medical Journal, 42(1), 18-25. DOI: 10.14744/etd.2019.83446
Milliken, A. (2018). Ethical awareness: what it is and why it matters. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.3912/OJIN.Vol23No01Man01
RegisteredNursing, org Staff Writers. (2022). NCLEX-RN exam guide. https://www.registerednursing.org/nclex/
Shindo, Y., & Tadaka, E. (2020). Development of the life change adaptation scale for family caregivers of individuals with acquired brain injury. PloS one, 15(10), e0241386. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241386
Wang, X., Shao, J., & Ye, Z. (2020). Understanding and Measuring Adaptation Level Among Community-Dwelling Patients with Metabolic Syndrome: A Cross-Sectional Survey. Patient Preference and Adherence, 14, 939–947. https://doi.org/10.2147/PPA.S248126
[elementor-template id="165244"]