Establishing a helpful relationship is one of the unique functions separating nursing from other health services.
The nurse-client relationship is a helpful, purposeful interaction between an authority in health care, the nurse, and a person or group with health care needs.
Through this relationship the nursing process is put to use, and it must be differentiated from mere association. Social contact with another individual, verbal or nonverbal, may exert some influence upon one of the participants, and needs may be met. But inconsistency, nonpredictability, or partial fulfillment of expectations often result. A nurse-client relationship is established when the person`s or family`s needs are met consistenly and unconditionally.
Through this relationship the nursing process is put to use, and it must be differentiated from mere association. Social contact with another individual, verbal or nonverbal, may exert some influence upon one of the participants, and needs may be met. But inconsistency, nonpredictability, or partial fulfillment of expectations often result. A nurse-client relationship is established when the person`s or family`s needs are met consistenly and unconditionally.
A working nurse-client relationship is by definition good, helpful, theraputic. There is no such thing as a poor nurse-client relationship; there are only poor or unsatisfactory experiences that prevent establishing the relationship. Interactions moving toward a relationship occur whenever direct patient care, health teaching, listening, or counseling are done, or when the person`s / family`s activities are being directed or modified in some way.
The following interactions are not helpful to the patient because needs are met inconsistently or conditionally :
a. Automatic, in which there is no meaning to either person.
b. Impersonally helpful, in which a service is expertly given but no personal interest or empathy is displayed.
c. Involuntary, in which “carrying out orders” is done as a duty, often the result of the nurse`s perception of work as just a job to be done.
d. Inconsistent (that which is conditional in nature) assisting the patient only when his situation is interesting or when it fulfills the nurse`s own needs.
The nurse-client relationship is one in which the person`s real complaint is uncovered. The focus is on the client`s needs rather than on your own. The person is not a social buddy. There is a giving of self in an objective way to the person and family, yet you do not identify with (feel the same as), pity, or reject the one seeking help. Neither do you feel you are the only person who can help the client. You utilize the resources that a team can offer whenever it is beneficial to the person or family.
References :
Murray, RB and Zentner JP., Nursing Concepts for Health Promotion, Second Edtion, Prentice-Hall, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, N.J, 1979.
Travelbee, Joyce, Interpersonal in Aspects of Nursing. Philadelphia : F. A. Davis Company, 1967.
