Evolution of a Relevant Nursing Concept: Kolcaba’s Theory of Holistic Comfort
Presentation
Overview
Overview
Description
Invited January 2020, Pending special session delivery in Summer 2021.
Comfort is defined by nurse-theorist Kolcaba (2003) as the immediate experience of being strengthened in one or more defined contexts of comfort: physical, psychospiritual, sociocultural, and environmental. Individuals can experience three types of comfort: (a) relief- having a comfort need met, (b) ease- an experience of calming or contentment, and (c) transcendence- rising above the problem (Kolcaba, 2003). The concept of comfort is further explained as being a holistic phenomenon- existing as the sum of many parts. As such, holistic care, regardless of the setting, is delivered in a multifaceted way to a whole person (hence, the sum of many parts). The main concepts of comfort theory are demonstrated clearly in Kolcaba’s conceptual framework which connect directly to three main propositions: (1) comforting interventions result in enhanced comfort, (2) increased comfort results in increased strength for tasks ahead, and (3) increased engagement in health-seeking behaviors results in increased institutional integrity (Bice & Kolcaba, 2020). Since its inception, comfort theory has been tested, applied, and utilized in various patient populations including women with breast cancer, patients in hospice, college students, preoperative patients, psychiatric patients, pregnant women, patients on dialysis, and pediatric patients. The theory has become so significant, in fact, that it continues to be applicable across the lifespan with new and adapted psychosocial measures. Enhanced comfort is not only relevant to all areas of patient care across the lifespan; it is germane to the discipline of nursing; it is more than merely the absence of pain (Kolcaba, 2013).
