Caring and compassion in nursing: Nursing culture of care
Nursing culture of Care expressed and practiced in professional nursing models provides a way of looking at the nursing role from the aspect of caring and compassion in nursing. It may seem excessive to consider aspects of caring and compassion in nursing. However, precisely because it IS nursing makes it crucial to our continual progress of defining and upholding one of our central professional principles.
Aspects of Caring and compassion in nursing
Compassion, or caring is one of the most precious asset in nursing. It is a fundamental element of nursing care and one of the strengths of the profession. According to Torjuul et al (2007), it involves being close to patients and seeing their situation as more than a medical scenario and routine procedures. The following are two elements involved in professional caring:
- Instrumental caring, which includes the required skills and knowledge
- Expressive caring involving the emotional aspects of the relationship. Expressive caring changes nursing actions into caring . This could help to explain why some nurses are technically competent, but do not seem outwardly compassionate.
How to express compassion as a nurse
EX: A patient or patient family learning a new diagnosis or getting leg amputated or family members learning of family passing. In this case a nurse can do the following to show compassion:
- Practice good manners
- Show personal interest.
- Take the time to think about what they have been through
- Always acknowledge their feelings.
Six Cs in Nursing practice
The following are the six Cs that nurses should uphold in their practice:
- care,
- compassion,
- competence,
- communication,
- courage
- commitment
The six Cs reaffirm the qualities and standards so that the public know what they can expect from nurses measure their culture. This will help them to look at what they need to do to reemphasize the importance of compassion, as well as the other five Cs.