Health in Partnership: Family Nursing Practice for People With Breathing Difficulties

Abstract

Reorienting the focus of health systems to incorporate a multifaceted approach that allows for comprehensive and humane health care is pending. Using the participatory paradigm approach, we describe a study of a partnership-based family nursing practice for people with breathing difficulties. We generated data through nine conversations with eight patients accompanied by a close family member (n = 6) and one wife, 15 conversations between the authors, and through a reflective journal. Narrative data analysis was conducted. Results that reveal the meaning and experience of the family nursing practice are presented in four interlacing descriptive statements: (a) surfacing and contextualizing health problems, (b) responsiveness of services, (c) security-stability-self-direction, and (d) unified family efforts- transformation. We conclude that the conceptual framework of partnership is a useful approach to nursing practice within a nurse clinic for people with advanced breathing difficulties and their families.

Feeling safe and motivated to achieve better health: Experiences with a partnership‐based nursing practice programme for in‐home patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

“…A central finding demonstrated that the participants experienced feeling safe and comforted . This resonates with Jonsdottir and Ingadottir's () study on a partnership‐based nursing practice, which discovered that a sense of security was a significant component, and urged that further research should focus on this. In our study, this was a generic finding that emerged in all three key themes, and was described in three different ways: as a need, as an experience and as a prerequisite to benefitting from the practice.…”

“…The nurse was not able to refer patients directly to home care services, but she could to assist patients in “finding their way” in the healthcare system if they wanted to reach out to home care services. The purpose was to ensure a complete course of treatment, help patients to cope with their illness at home, improve self‐management skills in everyday life by increasing patients’ understanding of their condition and collaborate in finding specific strategies for prevention and treatment through a dialogue in line with a partnership as practice approach (Ingadottir & Jonsdottir, ; Jonsdottir & Ingadottir, ).…”

“…This implies that nursing practice to patients with COPD requires a broad approach to symptom management, including support and facilitation (Ek & Ternestedt, ). Ingadottir and Jonsdottir () point to the challenge in developing nursing practice that also effectively addresses the psychological difficulties that people with COPD live through, and call for more studies to develop and study partnership‐based nursing practice (see also Jonsdottir & Ingadottir, ). To address this issue, our qualitative study intends to achieve a nuanced and improved understanding of COPD patients’ experiences with a partnership‐based nursing practice programme comprising home visits from a respiratory nurse after hospital discharge, alongside interdisciplinary collaboration.…”

“…Jonsdottir and Ingadottir () used the patient‐centred framework, “partnership as practice,” in a nursing practice programme research project addressed to patients with COPD and their families. Partnership is described as an approach to nursing where the nurse engages in a dialogue with the patient/family in an effort to understand their experiences, and collaborates in identifying needs and taking relevant actions to improve health predicaments (see also Ingadottir & Jonsdottir, ).…”

“…Ingadottir and Jonsdottir () point to the challenge of developing nursing practice programmes that also effectively address the psychological difficulties people with COPD live through. They call for more studies to develop and examine partnership‐based nursing practice (see also Jonsdottir & Ingadottir, ). Both quantitative and qualitative studies are recommended because HRQoL instruments might fail to capture the full experience of patients in self‐management interventions (Monninkhof et al., ).…”