Tailoring nursing care to the individual client: An analysis of client-nurse discourse
Abstract
Nursing practitioners are admonished to individualize care, but there is very little theoretical guidance or empirical evidence regarding how to do it. Cox's Interaction Model of Client Behavior (IMCHB) includes the concept of tailoring of care, and refers to the process by which client characteristics are taken into account by the nurse and allowed to determine interactional approaches and interventions.^ The purposes of this study were to: (a) explore and describe the extent of correspondence between the IMCHB's portrayal of tailoring and what actually occurred during the clinical discourse of primary health care encounters between an expert nurse and clients; and (b) explore and describe the discourse actions that were used by the expert nurse and clients to tailor interactions and interventions to the individual client.^ The inquiry related to the first question involved a search for indicators of tailoring in the content of the client-nurse discourse of three encounters, which had been selected for their propensity to involve tailoring of care. The second question was answered using methods of discourse analysis to construct a description of the discourse actions that were used to accomplish tailoring.^ The findings related to the first research question established that overall 78 percent of the content corresponded with the elements of the IMCHB. Moreover, there was evidence that client individuality did influence the interaction and the interventions enacted by the nurse. The findings related to the second research question showed that agenda issues of both the nurse and clients entered the discourse, but the clients varied considerably in terms of whether or not they had many issues they wanted to talk about. The nurse encouraged clients to introduce their issues by asking open-ended questions, and by specifically asking about how things were going at home.^ In conclusion, the findings were interpreted as supportive of tailoring as a valid representation of what occurred during the encounters. Based on the findings, the investigator proposed a revision of the IMCHB that involved inclusion of tailoring as a major element, and changes in the make-up of the interaction element so as to more fully represent the interactional modalities used by the nurse. ^
Subject Area
Health Sciences, Nursing
Recommended Citation
Sarah Jo Brown,
"Tailoring nursing care to the individual client: An analysis of client-nurse discourse"
(1990).
Dissertations and Master's Theses (Campus Access).
Paper AAI9106506.
http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/dissertations/AAI9106506