C33 : Nursing : Maintain the Optimal Health

Nursing is the profession within the area of healthcare which specifically focuses on providing care to the family, person and communities to help them achieve, recover or maintain the optimal health (Hoeve, Jansen, and Roodbol, 2014). A nurse should understand his or her strength, weakness, opportunities and threats associated with the respective field of work. This can be done by using SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threat) analysis. SWOT analysis is the tool that is used by the professional in different industries such as healthcare, and management. SWOT analysis in nursing is done by examining a person's life and career from various perspectives of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (Sincy, 2016). In this particular essay the reflection related to the identification of strength, and weakness will be done. The key skills which underpin life-long learning with the nursing profession and investigation of evidence-based practice to utilize in PDP will also be discussed in this report.

Reflective writing is our response to opinions, experience, events or any new information. It is a way of thinking to discuss or explore our learning. Gibbs reflection cycle is the theoretical model that often used by professionals, and student as the framework in reflective writing. This model includes five different stages such as description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan. Another model named Kolb’s model is the model referred to as the experiential learning model and Gibbs’ reflective model is referred to as the iterative model. This model can be used to reflect the strength, weakness, weaknesses and threats in a SWOT analysis (Husebø, O'Regan, and Nestel, 2015).

 In SWOT analysis, recognising strength means identifying what is working, where the strength lies, can someone took his or her own horn, taking the opportunities to elucidate what is good about the person and his or her workplace etc., an individual’s own strength, identifying where one’s career will go and what is the power behind the person’s personal potential (Helms, and Nixon, 2010). I have recognized the strengths that help me to grow my careers such as my organizational strength, team player, good communication, friendly behaviour, and cheerful nature. I am able to deal with the patient with. I have been effective in dealing with patient loads and comfortable in rotational shifts. As a team player in a health care team I have been motivating and helpful to other team members. More importantly, I have been a good listener throughout my career, therefore I am able to communicate well that ultimately help me to build a therapeutic relationship with the patient and communicating with the team member. I have very friendly with everyone I meet, helped me to gain the trust of the patient and their family members and making a good relationship with other healthcare workers. Being cheerful is another key strength of my professional career; this motivates me to work hard in order to provide good health services to the patient.

Everybody has some type of weakness related to their personal and professional life. Analyzing weakness may help the person to identify what they can improve, what are the limitations, which tasks are in conflict with the person's natural style, what are the activities or responsibilities to the person dread, where an individual feel overcommitted. Identifying the weakness can help one to work on that problematic limitation and mitigate them by putting more efforts (Gantt, 2010). I have been facing issue due to my lack of confidence. I am not very self-confidence and feel lack of confidence in dealing with critical cases. I have been facing problems while writing academic papers as my academic writing is not very good specifically in referencing. I confused between the type of reference I have to use and how many authors should I write in the in-text citation. Lack of believing in myself is another issue I faced. I am not able to develop a confidence that I am able to provide care to the person with the critical condition. Time management is another issue that I face while working and studying.

Opportunities in an SWOT analysis includes examining how can a person can turn his or her strengths in opportunities, what experience or knowledge could they gain to deal with the current weakness, what type of resources they have available for them to improve their capacity to act, how can their peer can help them, and are they open to upcoming opportunities (van Wijngaarden, Scholten, and van Wijk, 2012). I will use the Moodle and other available resources to improve my academic writing skills. There is an opportunity to use my strength to resolve the problems I have. Not being confident is the main weakness I mentioned above and my goal is to be able to build my confidence by presenting in class doing research. A discussed that I have strength like good communication that can be used to make good relationship with the tutors and take help form them to clear the confusion and issues I have in referencing. To deal with academic writing issues will do enough research on referencing by reading books, Moodle, taking help from my fellow students and tutors. I am also asking the teacher to give feedback on my work. Time management is another issue that I want to solve to get to placement and taking lectures on time. For that, I have started making timetables and setting alarms to wake earlier than usual. I am pushing myself to be punctual of time as this will surely help me to be professional.

Analyzing threats includes identifying what threats can harm people, what type of threats their weaknesses expose them to, how financial issues stopping them, are they feeling limited and blocked by competition (Manzano?García, and Ayala?Calvo, 2014). The threats my weaknesses may expose me to include lack of experience in dealing with the senior staff members, the fear of my placement and mentor, I do not have experience in childcare and this lack experience and lack of self-belief developed fear in me. The lack of confidence and self-belief may also create a problem for me in driving to placement. Due to the lack of management, I will not be able to manage the time between study and nursing practice. I also have financial issues that may cause other problems like lack of confidence and discourage me to leave my studies due to lack of money. It may also force me to do overtime and double shifts for extra money this may ultimately cause health problems.

Personal developing plan (PDP) includes identifying the key personal and professional skills and using them in patient care and lifelong learning (Quality Assurance Agency, 2011). The key skills I have recognized include good communications skills, polite behaviours, curiosity to learn new things, hygienic and skills, self-awareness, managing my learning, IT, and good command on MS office (especially MS word). I also have reading writing and listening skills that may help to gain lifelong learning. As mentioned above I am a good team player and can work in pressure. This may help me to learn different nursing strategies to provide good services to patients. The IT skills allow me to deal with computers and other devices to store and transfer patient’s information, managing my learning may learn new things without affecting my nursing practices to provide care to the patient, the hygienic behaviour will help me to prevent the infection to the patient, and the self-awareness will allow me to observe the patient’s vital signs. By improving the problem-solving skill I have, I can solve the clinical problems associated with patient care such as analysing adverse effects in the patient and referencing related problems (Kelly et al., 2009). My good writing skills may help to learn academic writing more effectively; this may develop my academic writing skills and writing high-quality research articles. The good listening skills will contribute to developing a therapeutic relationship with the patents and their family. The therapeutic relationship is the necessary approach that every nurse should have to gain the trust and confidence of the patient in the healthcare setting to provide good services to the patient. My speaking skills may also help me to build a good alliance with the physician and other team members. These communication skills improve my personal development. Significance of therapeutic relationship includes developing trust with the patient, respect the patient and their family in order to make good relationship, being empathetic with patient, and providing power to the patient in decision making process (Wright, 2010).

Evidence-based practice is conscientious, and a problem-solving approach to the practices which include the best evidence from well-designed research studies preferences, patient values and clinical expertise in the decision-making process in patient care. It has been recognized by the community of healthcare as the high or gold standard for the provision of compassionate and safe healthcare (Brown et al., 2009). Importance of EBP in nursing practice includes: it helps nurses to deliver a high-quality care to the patients, it helps nurses to gain better patient outcomes, improves the confidence to make a decision, it keeps the practice relevant and current (Miller, Ward, and Young, 2010). Some of the evidence-based practices that I can use in my personal developmental plan includes infection control in hospital care setting, barrier protection, oxygen use in patient with COPD, assessment of vital signs of the patient, observing the side effects of medication or treatment, good hand wash techniques, managing a good environment for the patient, developing good communication skills and academic writing skills (Means et al., 2009). These EBPs are directly linked to my SWOT analysis as they will increase my experience in different fields and develops self-confidence (Wong et al., 2015). While focuses on the good EBPs I should avoid some bad practices such as lack of validated outcome measures.

Nursing is the area of healthcare that focuses especially on providing good health care to an individual, family or community. The nurses should understand their strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats. I have done SWOT analysis and PDP and I have analysed that my strengths are good communication, friendly behaviour, and cheerful nature. The weaknesses I have, include lack of confidence, problems in academic writing and lack of time management. Some of the opportunities I can have by using my strength to deal with my weakness. I can use my good communication skills to develop a good relationship with patients, teachers and my colleagues. Some of the threats my weakness may expose our lack of experience to deal with senior staff, fear of mentor and placement and financial issues. Key skills that can underpin my lifelong learning and personal development include good hygienic practice, problem-solving skills and assessing vital signs of the patients. Some of the EBPs that can be used in my PDP are barrier protection, assessment of vital sign of the patient, developing good academic writing skills. These skills are important to increase confidence and keeping the practice relevant and effective.

References: 

Brown, C.E., Wickline, M.A., Ecoff, L. and Glaser, D., 2009. Nursing practice, knowledge, attitudes and perceived barriers to evidence?based practice at an academic medical center. Journal of advanced nursing, 65(2), pp.371-381.

Gantt, L.T., 2010. Strategic planning for skills and simulation labs in colleges of nursing. Nursing Economics, 28(5), p.308.

Helms, M.M., and Nixon, J., 2010. Exploring SWOT analysis–where are we now? A review of academic research from the last decade. Journal of strategy and management, 3(3), pp.215-251.

Hoeve, Y.T., Jansen, G. and Roodbol, P., 2014. The nursing profession: public image, self?concept and professional identity. A discussion paper. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 70(2), pp.295-309.

Husebø, S.E., O'Regan, S. and Nestel, D., 2015. Reflective practice and its role in simulation. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 11(8), pp.368-375.

Kelly, M., Lyng, C., McGrath, M. and Cannon, G., 2009. A multi-method study to determine the effectiveness of, and student attitudes to, online instructional videos for teaching clinical nursing skills. Nurse education today, 29(3), pp.292-300.

Manzano?García, G. and Ayala?Calvo, J.C., 2014. An overview of nursing in Europe: a SWOT analysis. Nursing Inquiry, 21(4), pp.358-367.

Means, B., Toyama, Y., Murphy, R., Bakia, M. and Jones, K., 2009. Evaluation of evidence-based practices in online learning: A meta-analysis and review of online learning studies.

Miller, L., Ward, D. and Young, H., 2010. Evidence-based practices in nursing. Generations, 34(1), pp.72-77.

Quality Assurance Agency, 2011. A toolkit for enhancing personal development planning strategy, policy and practice in higher education institutions (second edition). Available from: file:///C:/Users/System04088/Downloads/personal-development-planning-toolkit.pdf [Accessed 23 October 2018].

Sincy, P., 2016. SWOT Analysis in Nursing. International Journal of Nursing Care, 4(1), pp.34-37.

van Wijngaarden, J.D., Scholten, G.R., and van Wijk, K.P., 2012. Strategic analysis for healthcare organizations: the suitability of the SWOT?analysis. The International journal of health planning and management, 27(1), pp.34-49.

Wong, C., Odom, S.L., Hume, K.A., Cox, A.W., Fettig, A., Kucharczyk, S., Brock, M.E., Plavnick, J.B., Fleury, V.P. and Schultz, T.R., 2015. Evidence-based practices for children, youth, and young adults with autism spectrum disorder: A comprehensive review. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 45(7), pp.1951-1966.

Wright, K.M., 2010. Therapeutic relationship: Developing a new understanding for nurses and care workers within an eating disorder unit. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 19(3), pp.154-161.