Patient’s thoughts connected to illness and its treatment

One of nurse’s task is to provide patient with mental support in emotional tough situations that can appear during the treatment and rehabilitation process. This can be achieved by decreasing emotional strain, strengthening adaptational ways of coping with stress, supporting patient’s own skills. Patient’s reactions are strictly connected to his way of understanding the illness, and what is his attitude towards the illness. The aim of the article is to shown patient’s thinking processes about the illness that are expressed by his behavior and emotional reactions. The thinking processes is characterized in the article as a mental activity that runs along two lines: the line of experiencing the illness and the line of auto-reflections about the experience. The content of the thinking processes is: — links between the illness and elements of the general sense of life, — imaginations and beliefs with the resulting attitude towards the illness (idea of illness), — positive values appearing during the cure. Signs of the lack of understanding the illness, and non-adaptive ways of thinking were also discussed in the article. Every of the discussed contend is complemented with the information regarding nurse’s reactions to what can be seen in patient’s thoughts about the illness and the cure and emotions.

Nursing Topics 2014; 22 (2): 234–238