What is holistic nursing?
The demands and impacts of COVID-19, the nationwide nursing shortage in the United States, and the growing need for health services have all contributed to a profound transformation in the healthcare sector. An appropriate response to this pandemic is the implementation of holistic nursing, which emphasizes the importance of prevention above treatment. Marymount University’s online Master of Science in Nursing for Family Nurse Practitioner programs teach students the standards of holistic nursing practice that aim to improve their quality of life and health. What is holistic nursing?:
Professional nurses with training in holistic care have the proper skills to influence patients’ lifestyle decisions and the personal and economic impact on their health. This article will help you understand “what is the goal of holistic nursing?” and “what is an example of holistic nursing?” Let’s begin by discussing what holistic nursing is.
What is holistic nursing?
The term “Holistic” in medicine is defined as “care that addresses the patient as a whole, rather than merely the physical manifestations of illness.” From a holistic perspective, health care looks after the whole person, tending to their mental, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being and physical health. Comprehensive in nature, the goal of holistic treatment is not just to alleviate symptoms but to improve the patient’s quality of life in all aspects.
Standards of holistic nursing practice
Western medicine emphasizes using pharmaceuticals, radiation therapy, and surgical procedures to treat disease and injury. Additional therapies are incorporated into integrative medicine to supplement conventional methods. Following are a few examples of common holistic care techniques, as recommended by Registered Nurses:
- Osteopathy
- Help patients learn how to deal with stress
- Homoeopathy
- Going for a massage
- The use of hypnosis, water therapy, and balneotherapy
- Treatment methods from China and the East
- Health and fitness training
What are the five principles of holistic nursing?
In holistic medicine, the patient is treated with the utmost respect and dignity, a central tenet of the practice. As established by the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine (AIHM), the following principles of holistic nursing summarize the values underlying integrative medicine:
- Prevention is better than cure
- Effectiveness of integrating healing systems
- Relationship-based care characterizes holistic medicine
- Every experience is a teaching opportunity
- Accept the curative power of love
AIHM is a global community of health practitioners that promotes “evidence-based, comprehensive, affordable, and sustainable person-centered care.” Healthcare educators and advanced nursing schools are beginning to teach value-based care, which educates nurses in the application of the principles of holistic nursing.
What are the duties of a professional holistic nurse?
A holistic nurse must provide patients with treatment consistent with the concepts of holistic nursing. A holistic and typical registered nurse (RN) may offer the same treatment differently. The following are examples of how holistic nurses provide care:
- Holistic nurses are responsible for providing their patients with compassion as they offer healthcare services.
- As a holistic nurse, you will address all your patient’s needs, from their illness acknowledging the importance of mind, body, and spirit in healing.
- As a professional holistic nurse, you will consider numerous variables, like lifestyle and diet, to impact patient health. You will inquire about the patient’s general way of living.
What is the history of holistic nursing?
Holistic health care has evolved alongside medical science, highlighting the significance of nurses’ access to information and their ability to advocate for their patients. Nurses aware of how health care has changed over time might help shape its trajectory for the better. Medical practices from ancient times were centered on using plants, herbs, and first-hand accounts to treat patients. There is a brief background of holistic medicine and integrated treatment in the AMA Journal of Ethics.
Early medical practice was almost entirely predicated on spiritual explanations for disease causes. Hippocrates, the “father of Western medicine,” began investigating the link between sickness and bodily systems around 400 BCE. Later, physicians employed Hippocrates’s classification system to study and classify the inner workings of animals and humans.
In the early 1600s, doctors and scientists studied the human body as if it were a machine, with its organs and biological processes serving as gears. The emotional, spiritual, and psychological aspects of health treatment were primarily ignored as medicine shifted toward an empirical, evidence-informed, scientific model. A century ago, holistic medicine was revived by Florence Nightingale.
What we now refer to as “holistic nursing,” which Florence Nightingale helped pioneer, is named after her. Nightingale was an innovator in the nursing profession and a social reformer in Britain. In the 1850s, when she laid the groundwork for nursing ethics, she delivered treatment based on values. The fatality rate and the spread of cholera drastically decreased thanks to her efforts to improve hospital sanitation, which went beyond simple manual manipulation or pharmacological therapy.
Integrative medicine is increasingly used in today’s medical establishments. Integrative medicine still places a premium on evidence-based scientific healthcare research.
What is the importance of holistic nursing?
Nurses need to adopt a more holistic perspective because it has the potential to raise the bar for care for all patients. Using what they’ve learned from the past, researchers and practitioners in the healthcare industry have created a holistic framework for improving people’s health and longevity. Recent research indicates that “the conventional medical approach alone can place patients at risk, increase hospitalization, and increase the cost of treatment.”
These fundamental concerns explain why many doctors are still reluctant to practice holistic nursing. According to research into the efficacy of spiritually-centered care in palliative settings, a dying patient’s sense of self-worth is strengthened when they are provided with the opportunity to express their faith and spirituality. The same research indicated that 67% of Americans who die in hospitals or nursing homes do not receive spiritual support.
Some doctors and nurses try their best to practice holistic medicine, but they often find it challenging to put what they’ve learned in school into practice. Clinical placement services and on-campus residencies are essential for nursing programs to help students transition from the classes to the real world. Holistic nursing care has provided numerous benefits, including better population health, more effective preventative care, lower healthcare costs, and a greater emphasis on treating patients with respect and dignity.
Different benefits of holistic nursing
Healthcare practitioners, patients, and healthcare systems can all benefit from adopting and implementing holistic nursing care. With holistic medicine’s benefits, it’s easier for Americans to imagine a healthcare system that covers everyone. Holistic medicine is a treatment approach that aims to:
- Promoting the normalization of mental health care
- Respect the body’s innate capacity for repair
- Honor alternative healing practices and cultural norms
- Reinforce the importance of preventative care.
- Minimize the number of invasive surgeries performed
- Illuminate health’s monetary, social, and political obstacles
- Encourage doctors and nurses to treat patients like people by giving them the freedom to be themselves
Important lessons learned from value-based nursing education
Integrative methods based on holistic nursing theories are necessary, but how can we implement these models in clinical settings? Education is the most effective method for promoting holistic approaches to health treatment. The main objective of advanced nursing degrees in holistic nursing is to teach students how to provide care based on values.
Marymount University’s online Master of Science in Nursing offers a Family Nurse Practitioner program that emphasizes a holistic approach to patient care grounded in evidence. Marymount University’s MSN-FNP program prepares nurses with a blend of theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience.
1. Study and evaluation
Students pursuing Marymount’s Master of Science in Nursing-Family Nurse Practitioner program gain expertise in clinical technology, theoretical health care model research, and evidence-based practice application. Nursing students can learn to adapt and improve their procedures in light of new data in “Innovative Models of Care Delivery” and similar courses. This will help you gain skills and knowledge on how to:
- The use of population health statistics on larger populations
- The application of epidemiology and statistics to healthcare provision
- Explore, evaluate, and implement biostatistics
- Use cutting-edge methods of pathophysiology, pharmacology, and physical evaluation
2. Gain skills in leadership and advocacy
The MSN-FNP curriculum emphasizes leadership development and teaches students to advocate for patient safety and health. Nursing programs increasingly provide classes like “Leadership, Quality, and Ethics in Health Care,” which stress the need for nurses to exercise their moral agency and fulfill their ethical responsibilities in the workplace. These attributes apply to nurses who aspire to engage in administrative roles. In class, you will learn to:
- Learn how to make moral and legal choices
- Maintain compliance with established norms and legal mandates
- Participate as an advocate for healthcare
- Take on leadership responsibilities by working together across disciplines
3. Providing caring support
The method of providing healthcare is as much of a focus of holistic medicine as the treatment itself. Catholic-affiliated Marymount University aims to cultivate students’ intellectual and spiritual growth, encourage them to act according to their moral convictions, and help them contribute meaningfully to the broader community through service and compassionate care. The skills that the students acquire are:
- Maintain a respectful, compassionate, and dignified demeanor while providing care
- Ensure patients receive high-quality care by promoting their progress toward that goal
- Engage in conversation with patients and their loved ones
- Learn about and practice health care ethics
In a nutshell
Learning to treat the whole patient is essential to any comprehensive nursing program. Holistic nurses use their extensive nursing education, theoretical understanding, practical experience, intuitive insights, and inventiveness to become therapeutic partners with patients, their families, and their communities. Holistic nursing practice promotes the review of nursing practice by peers in various clinical settings and incorporates familiarity with nursing legislation, ethics, and standards.
