Published 2010-07-04
Keywords
- trust,
- comfort,
- comforting,
- nursing nurse-patient relationship
How to Cite
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Abstract
This paper presents a review of trust and trusting concepts, and a reflection on their role on nurse’s comfort work, with adult or elderly inpatient.
The nursing literature presents trust as a prerequisite for comforting and for client experience of comfort. In addition to support this assertion, the question is if this is the only one possible association between these concepts: Is the experience of trust, in itself, a comforting one? Will be the comfort work a way to construct a trusting relationship between
nurse and client?
We built a reflection that tries to cross dimensions of theory and practice of care in relation to these concepts. Three assertions are held: trust is needed in order to comfort and for the comfort experience; comforting care can nurture the creation of trust; and beeing able to trust the nurse, who is consistently seeking to comfort may be, in itself, a comforting
experience.