Antecedents: From the eighties has started a kind of revolution concerning the emotions and their impact on human wellbeing. Starting from Gardner’s work (1983) until the explosion of information in media regarding the publication of work of Goldman (1995), the scientific and popular interest in emotions has progressively increased. This interest for nursing is not new. According to the different authors (Peplau, 1952, 1990; Watson 1985, 2007), the nurse-user relationships can have therapeutic effects. Caring requires knowledge, attitudes and skills that include emotional literacy. Actually, the nursing research related to the sphere of emotions, although slightly, is gradually increasing. Objectives: The current research aims to analyze users’ and nurses’ perceptions about the role of emotions in nursing care. Area of study (target organization): Hospital and Primary Health Care Centers of Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa (CST, Barcelona). Methodology: The exploratory descriptive study, based on the mixed methods research (qualitative and quantitative) and the group comparison, was undertaken to meet the above mentioned goals. The sample consists of 40 participants (users and nurses) of Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa (CST). The semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were used as research instruments. Results: The interviewed users demonstrate doubts about what the functions of nurses are. They do not identify caring as a mission of these professionals. Nurses point out that their primarily role is caring, but have difficulties with the precision of its meaning. The users have the expectation to be well-treated by nurses and they give a special value to this kind of attention. The interviewed nurses think that users expect them to be decisive and effective. The nurses, in most of the cases, think that major users manifest the importance of giving attention and taking care about emotions; however, the users do not always perceive emotional caring, even though it represents a common practice of these professionals. The users report that they feel cared emotionally when nurses are treating them with kindness and active listening. This type of caring provokes feeling of wellbeing. The users and nurses underline that it is necessary for nurses to possess emotional skills and competences, especially related to active listening, empathy and capacity of emotional coping/management. However, when they have had to identify the most important skills for nursing practice, they have prioritized competences associated with medical practice before the competences related to emotional sphere. Most participants understand that the emotional caring is necessary, but they perceive that exercising this type of caring can leave an impact on efficiency and emotional equilibrium of nurses. This fact underlines the necessity of emotional self-monitoring and burn-out prevention for the professional nursing praxis. Conclusions: The users do not give a professional and/or therapeutic value to the type of relationships that establish nurses. The caring of emotions is understood as beneficial, however, it is considered as dangerous for efficacy and emotional equilibrium of nurses. Empathy, active listening and capacity of emotional coping/management refer to the basic emotional skills/abilities and to the main constituents of the emotional competence of nurse. The lack of emotional abilities in nurses probably indicates the cause of poor development of attention and emotional caring. It is necessary to propose the nursing education related to these skills. It should be relevant to continue the investigations that will permit justify the value (beneficial effects) of emotional caring and the necessity to strengthen the nursing education by the training in emotional skills, self-monitoring and burn-out prevention.
Las emociones en la práctica enfermera
Sánchez-Rueda, G. (Author). 8 Jul 2014
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis