Systems-Structure and Function

Systems-Structure and Function

            Unrelieved pain and suffering is a major issue in palliative care. The problem hinders the implementation of healthcare interventions at the micro, meso and macro levels. At the micro level, palliative care focuses on measures that help patients and their families to respond properly to their feelings, experiences and the meanings attached to their pain and suffering. Unrelieved pain causes persistent painful memories and thoughts that increase the patient’s psychosocial distress (Marie, 2013). The uncomfortable thought and feelings make it difficult for the patient to reframe his experiences and give meaning to his life. At the meso level, palliative care focuses on creating trusting and supportive relationships between health care providers, patients and their families. Unrelieved pain leads to delirium. The neuropsychiatric effects of the condition hinder the nurse-patient and patient-family communications and interactions that are crucial to the management of adverse effects of unrelieved pain (Mori, Elsayem, Reddy, Bruera, & Fadul, 2012). At the macro level, palliative care focuses on the allocation of resources to enable the palliative care nurse to provide adequate management of symptoms, quality care and comfortable end-of-life. Caring for patients with unrelieved pain is stressful and increases the risk of burnout by the health care providers. The consideration of the nurse-patient ratio, nursing hours and health-enabling technologies is critical.

            I will address the problem of unrelieved pain at the microsystem level by applying the therapeutic use of the self to help the patient in reframing painful memories and feelings and substituting them with the good ones. This intervention will help the patient to develop deeper meanings of his experience, life and value as a human being. The intervention will affect the mesosystems by influencing the consideration of culturally-competent communication and interactions, interdisciplinary collaboration and engagement of the patient’s family in developing acceptable interventions for relieving total pain (Brazil, 2017). On the other hand, the intervention will affect the macrosystems by influencing the consideration of the resources needed to customize the pain therapy approaches.