Download Relevance of studying psychology in nursing

Relevance of studying psychology
in nursing
Introduction
Psychology: According to Pastorino & Portillo (2012),
Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour
and mental processes.
Meyer (2006) further explain that ……
• Behaviour incorporates all our overt actions and
reactions and mental processes refer to our covert
activity of mind
Contd….
Nursing:
• Nursing as profession is considered to assist the
individual (usually patient) in performance of
activities contributing towards the recovery of their
health
(Barker, 2007)
Psychology in the Nursing Field
• Psychology is regarded as an important component of
nurse education.
• Psychology has become imperative to study human
mind for the better outcome of operations carried out
on daily basis.
• Psychology and nursing are poles apart but at a
certain level they are interconnected.
• Nursing focuses entirely on helping people recover
from acute and chronic illnesses while psychology
emphasizes on treating the psychological issues of
people.
• Nurses have to understand the psychology of their
patients and support them emotionally for a speedy
recovery.
Importance of Psychology in Nursing
• Nurses have to take care of patients during severe
health conditions and deal with their moods and
behaviors.
• Patients begin to rely on nurses who try to lessen
their mental stress.
Contd…
• Physical illness results in mental disturbance, at this
stage nurses have to be compassionate and
understanding.
• Nurses are trained in a manner that they support
patients emotionally by addressing the mental
changes.
Psychology and student nurse
The study of a human behaviour is of great value to a
student nurse in a number of ways.
• It will help to understand herself
• It will help to understand other people
• It will help her to improve situations by helping
others solve problems.
• Student nurse will appreciate the necessity of
changing the environment and guide her how to do.
-She promotes conducive atmosphere for ventilation
of true ,intense emotional feelings.
- Encourage patient to deal effectively and efficiently
with the problem.
Contd….
• She will understand the close relationship of body,
mind and spirit.
- She will recognize how her emotions affect her
body and she will recognize the same in her patients.
Study of Biological Psychology
• Biological psychology is used by the nurses to
analyze the association between human behavior
and biological changes.
• Nurses are taught about the psychological illnesses
and mood swings of patients caused by hormonal
changes, neurological reactions and last but not the
least genes.
Purpose behind Teaching Psychology
• Psychology in the nursing field is taught purposely.
• Nurses interact with patients on daily basis and it is
easy for them to identify the signs of mental
disturbances.
• It ensures proper care to patients and professional
services are given to them.
Required Traits
• In hospitals and health centers, there are different
kind of patients in ICU, HDU and general ward.
• Nurses are assigned to work with patients who are
severely ill or have acute health issues.
• Nurses are prepared to face such behaviors
throughout their academic life.
• Along the process of treatment they create a strong
relationship with the patients as away from home they
expect people to be friendly and compassionate to
them.
Contd…
• Nurses have to have some extraordinary traits such
as, patience, friendly nature, compassion, love for
others and the ability to feel the pain of others.
Importance of Psychology in Nursing
Practice
• It is important to consider that how people’s thoughts
and needs vary and what best can be done to ensure
these needs satisfied.
• It helps in establishing the communication processes
in order to improve the therapeutic relationship and
work more effectively .
Contd…..
• Understanding can be built on how people react in
different situations of illness, pain and distress.
• This also helps in meeting their demands in a better
way.
• Psychological factors inform the health care
professionals about the life styles of people and how
certain health-related behaviors i.e. smoking, dietary
change and exercise, can affect that.
• Logical steps can be taken in order to improve the
health and well-being of these individuals.
Conclusion
• In a nutshell, psychology provides an opportunity for
nurses to understand their responsibilities in a better
way and perform exactly as what is expected of them.
• Psychology plays a vital role in understanding the
health-related matters of the individuals and nurses
need to know them.
Methods of psychology
Methods of studying behaviour
Introduction
• Psychology is concerned with the scientific study of
the individual. Its approach is both theoretical and
practical.
• It has its special tools and carefully planned
procedures help us in gather information or essential
facts about it. These procedures of collecting data are
called as its methods.
Methods of psychology
• Introspection / self observation
• Objective observation
• Experimental method
• Case study method , clinical method
• Field observation method – genetic/developmental
method
• Survey
• Testing – psychology & educational test.
Introspection / self observation
• Introspection means to look within or to look into
one’s own self( own thoughts, feelings and
experiences)
• It is the internal perception or self observation.
• Individual himself observes his internal activities
and processes whenever and wherever he likes to do
so.
• Example: a patient has just gained consciousness after
an operation a nurse may ask “him how are you
feeling now?” ….. The patient will try to look within
or recall what happened & how he is feeling now &
will accordingly report.
Contd….
• It is a method in which the individual observes,
analyses and reports his own feelings or thoughts
during the course of mental action.
Advantages
• Enable us to understand fully the behaviour of an
individual
• Helps to know what is going on in the mind of the
person.
• Less expensive
• Do not need any laboratory or apparatus
Contd….
• Obtain direct knowledge of the mental processes of
the individual.
Introspection - Disadvantages
• This method cannot be used by children or mentally
retarded and those who are not good at verbal
expression.
• Introspective results cannot be verified by others.
• It may destroy the very experience or process it aims
at studying.
Objective observation
• It means collection of data by means of observing
behaviour by somebody other than that person.
• Focused not only on the overt behaviour of the
subject such as his expressions, motor behaviour etc.
• Data collection will be done by observation.
Contd….
• Observation deals with the overt behaviour of
persons in appropriate situations.
- It is a method of measurement without instruments.
- Types: Participant observation & Non- participant
observation.
Contd…..
• Recorded behaviour is more reliable
• It is a study of individual in a natural situation and is
therefore more useful than the restricted study in a
test situation.
• This method can be used with subjects of any age
group and mental condition to collect data about
behaviour.
• It is adaptable to both individuals and groups.
• It does not require any laboratory or instruments.
Disadvantages
• The observer has to wait for the behaviour to occur
in his own this naturally consumes a lot of time.
Some times the behaviour may not occur at all. In
that case waiting will be waste.
• It is very difficult to observe every behaviour.
• Observer can observe and record only the overt
behaviour and not the feelings & expression
which are purely internal so the data will be
incomplete.
• It will be impossible to control all the variables
which determine the behaviour under study.
• Personal attitudes, likes and dislikes may
influence the observer. Which leads to
inaccurate data collection.
• Example of objective observation: Patient’s
temperature, pulse facial expression and
restlessness.
Experimental method
• Most often used in laboratory.
• Method of observation of the behaviour or the ability
of the individual under controlled condition.
• An experiment aims to investigate a relationship
between two or more factors by deliberately
producing a change in one factor and observing its
effects on other factors.
• The person who conducts the experiment is called the
experimenter and the one who is being observed is
called the subject.
• Psychologist studies the effects of a dependent
variables on changes in independent variable.
• Many experiments are being conducted on people
and animals dealing with learning, forgetting and
many other mental activities.
• Advantages :
- It is the most systematic method of getting the most
reliable conclusion about the behaviour .
- The result can be verified by repeating under similar
condition at any time and the result can be either
accepted or rejected.
- The number of factors, which are likely to affect the
behaviour, can be controlled.
• Provides adequate objective information about the
problem.
• It increases our knowledge of cause – effect relations
in the behaviour.
• Provides guidelines and innovative ideas for further
experimentation.
Disadvantages
• It cannot always be used due to difficulties such as
dangerous to subjects , difficult in artificial situations
of laboratory.
• It has difficulty in getting co-operation of subjects.
• It requires laboratory and is expensive
• We cannot accumulate information from abnormal
people using this method.
Case study method
• In-depth study of a child or individual over a limited
period of time.
• Helps to understand the causes and sources of people
fears, anxieties, worries and social maladjustment.
• It uses case histories, interviews, home visits and
psychological tests.
• Case study is a form of qualitative analysis
involving very careful and complete
observation of a person.( Biesanz & Biesanz)
• It is a method of exploring and analyzing the life
of a person.( P. V Young)
Advantages of case study method
• It permits in depth study of problem of the child.
• Helps in diagnosing , treating, guiding and providing
solution to the problem.
• Brings out some important but unknown facts about
child’s growth and development.
Disadvantages of case study method
• It needs detailed data to be collected.
• It consumes a lot of time to collect data about a
large number of individuals for the study.
Survey/ field observation method
• Data collection methods used: interviews,
questionnaire, rating scale etc.
• Questionnaire : is a series of standardized stimuli to
let the information and certain forms of responses the
individual is given a questionnaire and is expected to
answer each questions by expressing his agreement
or disagreement. ( close type & open type)
Rating scale
• In the rating scale we rate an individual on the
procession or absence of certain trials on a certain
scale.
• The individual is given a place on the scale or a score
which indicates the degree to which a person posses
a given behaviour trait.
Interview
• The method has been used in a variety of situationspersonal selection, medicine, education & so on.
• It used to secure information about the problem & to
assess the nature of his difficulty by listening to what
the client has to say, how he says, what does not say,
by observing his behaviour psychiatrist /psychologist
can understand the problem of the client.
Testing method
• This method makes use of carefully devised and
standardized tests for measuring attitudes, interest,
achievement, intelligence & personality traits.
• Intelligence test measure the intellectual capacity of
an individual and achievements tests through light on
achievement of student in various subjects they are
studying.
Contd…..
• So adopting all these methods , psychology collets
information about behaviour, which helps us to
study the behaviour systematically.