Education Tool for a Holistic Nursing Intervention

Competency

Utilize the holistic caring process.

Scenario

While attending a National Holistic Nursing Conference as a nursing student, you participated in a session about holistic nursing interventions.

You are excited to share your knowledge with your fellow student nurses. In preparation for sharing your knowledge, you need to create a patient educational tool (handout, poster, etc.) that provides education on at least one holistic nursing intervention that addresses either a symptom(s) or condition(s) management. You must include at least one intervention and one symptom or condition. Some interventions can be applied to multiple situations or symptoms.

Instructions

Your educational tool should be one-to-two pages and work its way from general to specific, cite evidence-based resources, and contain the following:

A definition of holistic nursing intervention(s).
Provide the symptom(s) or condition(s) that you may potentially use with this intervention.
A description of how you would implement the holistic intervention(s).
Include at least one method of implementing the holistic nursing intervention(s).
Include at least one nursing scenario where you might implement the nursing intervention(s).
At least two potential positive outcomes of practicing the holistic nursing intervention(s).
At least two resources providing additional information about self-care for nurses. Explain why each is a good choice.

ANSWER

Education Tool for a Holistic Nursing Intervention

Hypnosis in Nursing Practice

Holistic care in nursing is the philosophy that guides the patients’ care in which the patient receives care for their physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. The difference between traditional nursing and holistic nursing is that they implement different philosophies. Holistic nursing focuses on the attribute of a patient’s sickness or injury to their experiences and their environment. Traditional western medicine focuses on genetics, bacteria, and viruses.  Hypnosis is a holistic nursing intervention with several benefits. Hypnosis can help with health conditions such as migraines, phobias, Dermatologic disorders, fibromyalgia, sexual disorder, trauma, and PTSD (Philips, 2020). Hypnosis brings a holistic approach to healing as it connects the body mind and spirit.

Hypnosis has been in existence for hundreds of years. However, it is still underutilized in the healthcare sector. Nurses are in a better position to bring therapeutic hypnosis to the clinical setting. Hypnosis is especially useful for patients experiencing mental health issues such as anxiety and those who are trying hard to quit habits such as smoking (Thomson, 2020). As a nurse who is concerned with holistic care, one can discuss with such patients the options of trying therapeutic hypnosis. It is the role of the nurse to ensure that the patient recovers as a whole, not in parts. This means introducing alternative means of care to ensure that the patient dies not to return to the hospital battling the condition.

An example of a scenario where, as a nurse, I would encourage a patient to seek therapeutic hypnosis is a patient who suffers from chronic headaches. Western medication in such cases offers them opioids which can lead to the patient getting addicted and leading to other problems in their life. instead of pumping the patient with drugs, I would recommend they try the therapy as it might help them deal with the headaches.  I would also recommend the same treatment for patients who seek therapy for their anxiety. Anxiety is a mental health problem that can prevent a person from having normal life social interactions. In that case, I would suggest the therapy to ensure they are having normal interactions.

The advantage of suggesting that the patient seeks hypnosis therapy is that they could get healed. This means they will not be dependent on drugs anymore and thus they will not be at the risk of becoming addicted to drugs. They will also be able to go back to their normal lives without having to deal with frequent chronic headaches. For patients with anxiety, hypnosis will help them lead a normal life and they will not spend money in therapy trying to have normal social interactions.

Hypnosis is also important for nurses. Nurses have one of the most stressful jobs as they deal with many patients and work many hours. They should worry about self-care and dedicate their time to trying to relieve the stress (Nurse.com). Nurses can also take time for self-reflection to ensure that they are not stressed and to get rid of any stress they might be harboring from the job. Nurses are more efficient if they maintain solid physical, mental, and spiritual health. They can also try other forms of holistic care to relieve the stress such as aromatherapy. The different forms of aromatherapy include burning incense and extracting oils from various plants (Halm, 2017). These are all important as they enable them to be efficient and ensure they do not get sick from the stress at work.

References

Halm, M. (2017). The role of mindfulness in enhancing self-care for nurses. American Journal of Critical Care, 26(4), 344-348.

Nurse.com. Holistic nurse shares enlightening view on self-care. https://resources.nurse.com/self-care-holistic-nurse-shares-view-on-self-care

Phillips, B. C. (2020). Hypnosis in the clinical setting. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 32(5), 351-353.

Thomson, L. (2020). The essence of mind-body-spirit medicine and holistic care. JOJ Nursing & Health Care, 11(4), 84-85.