A patient and family care study on Hypertension

Abstract

Formerly, nursing was just caring for the sick on the sick bed. The nursing profession began to change extremely under the inspiration of Florence Nightingale. Nursing has reformed the care for the sick to include taking of medical history and conducting physical examination which was previously the duty of the medical doctor. According to Virginia Henderson, nursing is the process of assisting the individual either sick or well in the performance of those activities which contribute to health or peaceful death that he would have performed unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge and to do this in such a way as to help him gain independence and rapidly as possible. Due to modernization, nursing has been changed to a holistic and individual nursing care of a patient by means of new techniques employed in the profession. To provide holistic and efficient nursing care to patient and family, the student nurse employs knowledge and skills in discipline such as psychology, sociology, surgery, pharmacology, public health and medicine to meet the needs of the patient, family and the community as a whole. Patient/Family care study is a written script on individualized nursing care rendered to a patient in relation to his disease condition at a specific period of time. The care is based on the theoretical and practical experience acquired by the student nurse through the three-year training. The study forms part of the assessment of the student nurse by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Ghana for the award of a license to practice as a Registered General Nurse. The patient’s care was carried out using the nursing process.The study helps the student to gain ii knowledge in all areas of medical science to care for patients as individuals. The patient and family care study start from the day of admission to the time of discharge and continue in the community to ensure optimum health through home visits. The care aids the student nurse to have a clear knowledge and understanding of the disease, its incidence, frequency in human population and treatment. It also gives the patient and relatives knowledge on the disease and helps build interpersonal relationship between the nurse and the patient/family. For the purpose of confidentiality, the name of my patient and family were stated using initials instead of full names throughout the care study