Comfort of Hospitalized Patients: A Missed Concept

Historically, comfort has been an optimal outcome in caring of hospital patients though, the concept of comfort from patient's perspective is rarely assessed. The aim of this study was to explore hospitalized Medical-Surgical patients’ experiences and perceptions regarding of comfort and discomfort. A qualitative approach using grounded theory was adopted in this study. The data collected by semi-structured interviews and participants’ observation, from a purposive sample of 31 medical-surgical patients, with 11 patient's accompanied relatives who were subjected to questions and constant comparative analysis. This study was conducted in five large teaching and semi-private hospitals in Iran. Date analysis covered a number of themes obviously included discomfort. In fact, experiencing discomfort was so persistent in the data, that it formed several categories including “physical, psychosocial and environmental discomfort”. Self help and organizing of informal caring web, and seeking help from others, were the participants’ main strategies to deal with discomfort. The finding indicated that hospitalization of patients is not always necessarily equivalent to effective deal with caring and therapeutic needs. Patients experience a lot of distress related to hospital's policies, regulations and priorities. Patients can have active role for discomfort management. In addition, it is highlited the roles of patient's relative and care-givers in hospitals. Therefore, without cooperation of care-givers (patient's relatives), the quality of nursing care could be disturbed seriously.