Katharine Kolcab Comfort Theory
Katharine Kolcaba: Comfort Theory
Sarah SchlenvogtPresentation College
In my nursing practice with long term care residents, I frequently care for dying residents. Instead of simply providing these patients with medication to ease the pain, I wanted to learn about ways to enhance the comfort of the dying patient and assist their beloved family throughout the difficult process. This desire led me to undertake a concept analysis of comfort. Through my research at the end of life, I discovered Katharine Kolcaba’s theory of comfort. I found her theory to be usefully in describing the concept of comfort care and decided to further analyze her theory and portray its use in the nursing practice.
Katharine Kolcaba was born on December 8, 1944 …show more content…
These concepts are health care needs, nursing interventions, intervening variables, patient comfort, health-seeking behaviors, institutional integrity and institutional outcomes. She defines health care needs as “needs that arise for patients in stressful health care situations (Kolcaba, 2001). Intervening variables are those things “that will affect the outcomes” and she describes patient comfort as “the immediate state of being strengthened by having needs met.” Health seeking behaviors are defined as “patient actions of which they may or may not be aware and which may or may not be observed that are predictor or indicators of improved health” (Kolcaba, 2001). Institutional integrity is defined as “the quality or state of health care organizations” (Kolcaba, 2003). Finally, she described institutional outcomes as “decreased lengths of stay, successful discharges, and improved public relations when patients and families are happy with their health care” (Kolcaba, 2001), which for hospital administrators is the ultimate goal when comfort is a key nursing consideration. With the key concepts identified and defined, their relationship to one another needs to be …show more content…
Whall compares middle range theories with grand theories and states that middle range theories “contain fewer concepts and relationships, are adaptable to a wide range of practice and experience, can be built from many sources, and are concrete enough to be tested” (Kolcaba, 2001). Given this description, the theory of comfort can be readily identified as a middle range theory.
With regard to the concepts presented by Kolcaba, they are clearly defined and the relationship between them are easily understood. The concepts are generalized and measurable through the development of numerous measurement tools designed for specific environments. The theory itself had been applied in a number of different environments including hospice, perioperative, radiation therapy and general care areas. Questionnaires to test the theory of comfort have been developed for each of these areas and successfully tested and employed. The scope of the theory is narrow and stands at a low level of
Sarah SchlenvogtPresentation College
In my nursing practice with long term care residents, I frequently care for dying residents. Instead of simply providing these patients with medication to ease the pain, I wanted to learn about ways to enhance the comfort of the dying patient and assist their beloved family throughout the difficult process. This desire led me to undertake a concept analysis of comfort. Through my research at the end of life, I discovered Katharine Kolcaba’s theory of comfort. I found her theory to be usefully in describing the concept of comfort care and decided to further analyze her theory and portray its use in the nursing practice.
Katharine Kolcaba was born on December 8, 1944 …show more content…
These concepts are health care needs, nursing interventions, intervening variables, patient comfort, health-seeking behaviors, institutional integrity and institutional outcomes. She defines health care needs as “needs that arise for patients in stressful health care situations (Kolcaba, 2001). Intervening variables are those things “that will affect the outcomes” and she describes patient comfort as “the immediate state of being strengthened by having needs met.” Health seeking behaviors are defined as “patient actions of which they may or may not be aware and which may or may not be observed that are predictor or indicators of improved health” (Kolcaba, 2001). Institutional integrity is defined as “the quality or state of health care organizations” (Kolcaba, 2003). Finally, she described institutional outcomes as “decreased lengths of stay, successful discharges, and improved public relations when patients and families are happy with their health care” (Kolcaba, 2001), which for hospital administrators is the ultimate goal when comfort is a key nursing consideration. With the key concepts identified and defined, their relationship to one another needs to be …show more content…
Whall compares middle range theories with grand theories and states that middle range theories “contain fewer concepts and relationships, are adaptable to a wide range of practice and experience, can be built from many sources, and are concrete enough to be tested” (Kolcaba, 2001). Given this description, the theory of comfort can be readily identified as a middle range theory.
With regard to the concepts presented by Kolcaba, they are clearly defined and the relationship between them are easily understood. The concepts are generalized and measurable through the development of numerous measurement tools designed for specific environments. The theory itself had been applied in a number of different environments including hospice, perioperative, radiation therapy and general care areas. Questionnaires to test the theory of comfort have been developed for each of these areas and successfully tested and employed. The scope of the theory is narrow and stands at a low level of