Therapeutic Relationship

Case 1

Moral distress is a frequent situation that health care providers should face. Please define and discuss a personal experience where you have faced Moral distress in your practice.

The nursing profession requires prompt decision making all the time and the ability to handle different situations which arise, including unethical situations. Moral distress can be defined as an emotional state that comes from a situation when a caregiver feels that the ethically sound action to undertake is different from what they are tasked with doing(Campbell, Ulrich & Grady, 2018). For instance, when procedures or policies prevent a nurse from doing what they feel is right, that leads to a moral dilemma. An ethical dilemma can make a nurse feel depressed, anxious or powerless. My personal experience of moral distress is when I worked in a palliative care unit and then received a transfer to the oncology ward. I was disturbed that my colleagues did not discuss openly with cancer patients about death even when there was no hope of cure and death was inevitable. Sometimes, family members were told indirectly that the hospital had tried its best to provide care for their loved ones, but nurses never discussed death with patients. Also, while in the palliative care unit, I had learned that patients with chronic illnesses need maximization of their quality of life, proper management of symptoms and discomforts, open discussion of death, and proper treatment with dignity and respect. However, I found my colleagues uncomfortable talking about death in the oncology unit, and I felt that patients were worried in isolation. I also felt that patients were also suffering in silence, and the staff did not take their suffering seriously. I was upset, feeling that many patients were dying inhumanely.

Discuss how health promotion relates to morality.

Ethics and moral principles must regulate health promotion. Even though practitioners in the health care field and scholars have been writing about morals and ethics in health promotion for decades, the significance of morality has gained attention within the health care and academic field. Health promotions involve addressing health issues in society. It means that health promotion needs a series of ethical and moral judgments, such as what health strategies can help the public and what health promotion interventions are effective. It also involves using public resources to promote public health, which requires that health officers uphold high standards of integrity and honesty. Therefore, it is evident that the relationship between health promotion and morality is that health promotion involves choices and decisions that can have a negative or positive impact on people's health which require decisions to be made about whether a particular course of action is wrong or right (Carter and Allegrante, 2017).

Discuss your insights about your communication strengths and weaknesses. Identify situations where it may be difficult for you to establish or terminate a therapeutic relationship.

My strengths in communication include; strong verbal communication skills and the willingness to listen to what other people say and provide constructive feedback. This enables me to communicate with many patients simultaneously, hence saving time. Also, when it comes to written communication, I often ensure that concise and logic are observed during information recording. Because of this quality, I am confident about storing patient records safely. On the other hand, my weaknesses include being nervous when addressing a group of patients. In most situations, I end up mumbling instead of delivering information. Thus, this can prevent me from creating a good therapeutic relationship with my patients.

References

Campbell, S. M., Ulrich, C. M., & Grady, C. (2018). A broader understanding of moral distress. In Moral distress in the health professions (pp. 59-77). Springer, Cham.

Carter, S. M., and Allegrante, J. P., (2017). How to Think about Health Promotion Ethics