nursingforsocialjustice

1. 1:  the study of the essential nature of diseases and especially of the structural and functional changes produced by them

2. 2:  something abnormal:a:  the structural and functional deviations from the normal that constitute disease or characterize a particular diseaseb:  deviation from propriety or from an assumed normal state of something nonliving or nonmaterialc:  deviation giving rise to social ills <connections between these pathologies … and crime — Wendy Kaminer>

   (Webster’s Dictionary, 2016)

Some questions that might be prudent to ask ourselves before we react:

1. Is the emotional response reasonable to the context of the situation? If someone’s partner just told them that they are moving away and taking the kids with them, is it reasonable for the person to feel anger?
2. What are we hoping to achieve by the intervention? Answering this questions may involve some exploration of the limitations of our clinical skill and clinical experience.
3. What message are we hoping to convey to the patient/client/person in our care? For example, really exploring the message that is being sent by health care practitioners if an as needed medication (PRN) is offered every time strong emotional response is experienced.
4. Are there interventions that would better serve the patient/client in terms of usability when not in the hospital/health care setting?
5. How are we going to evaluate the success of the outcome?
6. If the situation goes wrong, ending in an intervention like restraint, how are we explaining this to the patient/client? How are we gauging their understanding of the experience?

I think that some questions that we need to ask ourselves if the intervention goes the way of restraint are:

1. Was some of my action influenced by fear that I was experiencing?
2. Was that fear reasonable? Was it based on knowledge of a person’s history, previous behaviour, the context of the situation currently? Or was it based on past incidents or a generic set of behaviours with a one size fits all response?
3. Is the process being explained to the person?
4. Are we making assumptions that the person understands the processes/procedures of the hospital that may have never been explained to them?

Peace,