Dating back to the beginning of the nursing profession, Nightingale (1860) was the first to advocate for treating patients holistically in separating the patient from their disease process. This knowledge, enabled her to build her founding practices around the significance of creating an environment conducive for natural healing (Cherry & Jacob, 2008). Building upon these principles, along with measures incorporating the mind, body, and spirit when caring for patients is what holistic nursing is all about (Cherry & Jacob, 2008). This understanding, along with the fact that nurses consistently spend more time with patients than any other healthcare discipline, places nurses …show more content…
The following items were searched: Holistic care, patient rights, person-centered care, individualized care, holistic nursing, and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Literature reviews revealed a commonality in holistic care and improved patient outcomes, compliance, and/or satisfaction. Three studies were identified as being significant: Suhonen 2011, Povlsen 2011, and Robinson 2008. Each participant, although using different sample sizes and methods of data collection, came to the same conclusion in that patient centered care improves patient outcomes and supports positive relationships with healthcare …show more content…
(2011) surveyed 1315 surgical patients from 72 inpatient wards across 5 countries, using a cross-sectional design and survey method in 2009. Participants were asked to answer questions devised to explore their perceptions of support and delivery of individualized care. Utilizing Pearson’s correlation coefficients a positive correlation emerged between individualized care and patient satisfaction confirming nurse-patient relationship strengthening when utilizing holistic care practices (Suhonen et al., 2012, p. 376).
In addition, Povlsen (2011) completed a comprehensive quantitative analysis of holistic nursing and health promotion. This inquiry, into 23 articles completed from 1995-2008 utilized the Empirical, Theoretical, and Review types. Results observed from this study confirmed