Comfort is experienced daily in everyday living: in using clothes, beds, hand tools and kitchen appliances as well as in sitting on furniture. However, there is little knowledge about how people from different countries experience comfort and discomfort.
In the medical domain, hospitals are increasingly focusing on patients’ comfort. Providing a comfortable environment increases patient satisfaction and has a positive impact on staff morale.
Definition
Comfort is a feeling of satisfaction or ease. It is often a result of someone’s presence or something that eases the mind or physical state of being. For example, someone may feel comfort from a hug or the warmth of a blanket. The word can also be used as a verb to describe encouraging someone in times of sorrow or anxiety, such as “to comfort my brother after his team lost.” This type of comfort can also be called a consolation or solace. The Old and New Testaments offer biblical examples of encouragement and support in the form of comfort.
The synonyms of comfort are pacify, soothe, gladden, cheer up, strengthen, and reassure. To comfort means to lessen sadness or distress and inspire with hope and a cheerful outlook: to comfort a mournful friend. To relieve or assuage is to lighten or lessen pain, suffering, or anxiety: to relieve a patient. To reassure is to calm a frightened or worried person: to reassure a child. The sense of comfort is personal and varies among individuals, but some common themes include contact comfort (e.g., a loving hug), comfort foods, and thermal comfort (e.g., a Snuggie).
Meaning
The Bible uses the term comfort often to refer to encouragement, such as in Exodus 14:13 and 20:20 when Moses calls on God to “comfort” his people. It also uses the word to refer to a sense of security or safety. Isaiah says that the Lord is a comfort to those who mourn (Isaiah 31:12). The New Testament describes the church as a place of comfort for believers (2 Corinthians 1:4). And Jesus is the one who brings comfort to those who are troubled or distressed (John 16:33).
The feeling of comfort varies among individuals, but there are some things that tend to bring most people comfort. These include contact comfort, which is satisfaction with someone’s touch, thermal comfort, which is a pleasant temperature, and moisture comfort, which is the absence of dampness. People are willing to pay more, wait longer, or go out of their way to find these comforts.
As a result, businesses that focus on providing comfort are likely to see increased customer satisfaction. Medical practices, for example, have found that by making patients comfortable, they are more likely to return to the practice and to recommend it to others. And hospitals are adding features like biophilic design to make patients feel at ease, which can lead to better health outcomes and shortened recovery times.
Context
The Theory of Comfort focuses on the holistic treatment of patients. It combines human needs, nursing interventions, and patient outcomes. The nursing actions are based on the assumption that a patient’s health care needs can be fulfilled through a range of nursing interventions. These interventions include the assessment of patient satisfaction, addressing antecedents, and providing consequences.
Katherine Kolcaba developed this theory through inductive reasoning, which is a type of logical process that involves observing peculiar instances and drawing generalizations from them. She used her own experience with dementia patients, as well as literature from multiple disciplines, to develop the theory.
Several studies have shown that using the theory of comfort improves patient outcomes. It increases patient satisfaction, shortens hospital stays, and reduces morbidity rates. It also leads to better healthcare efficiency and improved cost-benefit ratios.
The Theory of Comfort incorporates the principles of the nursing profession, such as holistic care and the importance of addressing a patient’s emotional and psychological needs. It is also rooted in the idea that humans are active and that their interactions with the environment can lead to pain or pleasure.
The Theory of Comfort has six propositions that flow consistently and clearly outline the major concepts. These include: patient health care needs, comforting interventions, intervening variables that may cause challenges, objectives of improving health seeking behaviors, and sustaining institutional integrity.
Application
Since its inception, the concept of comfort has been applied in a variety of nursing settings. Among them are midwifery, postpartum care, burn units, ambulatory surgery, hospice and psychiatry. In these studies nurses use the General Comfort Questionnaire developed by Kolcaba to assess a patient’s comfort. In some cases, nurses also have incorporated the Taxonomic Structure of Comfort into their teaching and practice.
Unlike other nursing theories, the Theory of Comfort is more understandable and accessible to people who are not familiar with the nursing profession. This is because it addresses the holistic needs of patients as compared to the medicalization of their illnesses. In addition, it has a clearer definition of comfort and offers practical tools for assessing and caring for patients’ comfort needs.
Another advantage of this theory is that it focuses on the individual and not the illness. It is therefore easy for healthcare practitioners from different disciplines to apply it into their practice. Furthermore, this theory allows for a greater level of cooperation between healthcare professionals.
A hospital such as Miami Children’s Hospital has embraced this theory to provide holistic care to its pediatric patients and their families. It has been shown that applying this theory in clinical areas increases patient satisfaction, improves institutional integrity and helps in patient retention. This is because when a patient is comfortable, it strengthens his or her health seeking behaviours and leads to better outcomes for the hospital.