Nurse's Pocket Guide

eadiness for enhanced COMFORT
• Encourage adequate rest periods to prevent fatigue.
• Plan care to allow individually adequate rest periods. Schedule
activities for periods when client has the most energy to
maximize participation.
• Discuss routines to promote restful sleep.
PSYCHOSPIRITUAL
• Interact with client in therapeutic manner. The nurse could
be the most important comfort intervention for meeting
client’s needs. For example, assuring client that nausea can
be treated successfully with both pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic
methods may be more effective than simply
administering antiemetic without reassurance and comforting
presence.
• Encourage verbalization of feelings and make time for listening/
interacting.
• Identify ways (e.g., meditation, sharing oneself with others,
being out in nature/garden, other spiritual activities) to
achieve connectedness or harmony with self, others, nature,
higher power.
• Establish realistic activity goals with client. Enhances commitment
to promoting optimal outcomes.
• Involve client/SO(s) in schedule planning and decisions about
timing and spacing of treatments to promote relaxation/
reduce sense of boredom.
• Encourage client to do whatever possible (e.g., self-care, sit up
in chair, walk). Enhances self-esteem and independence.
• Use distraction with music, chatting/texting with family/
friends, watching TV, playing video/computer games, to limit
dwelling on/transcend unpleasant sensations and situations.
• Encourage client to develop assertiveness skills, prioritizing
goals/activities, and to make use of beneficial coping behaviors.
Promotes sense of control and improves self-esteem.
• Offer/identify opportunities for client to participate in experiences
that enhance control and independence.
ENVIRONMENTAL
• Provide quiet environment, calm activities.
• Provide for periodic changes in the personal surroundings
when client is confined. Use the individual’s input in creating
the changes (e.g., seasonal bulletin boards, color changes,
rearranging furniture, pictures).
• Suggest activities, such as bird feeders/baths for bird-watching,
a garden in a window box/terrarium, or a fish
Information in brackets added by the authors to clarify and enhance
the use of nursing diagnoses.
164 Cultural Collaborative Community/Home Care