Summary of the Research on Holistic Care

Holistic care is a model of caring in nursing. It is considered a behavior, which recognizes a patient as a whole and includes a wide range of approaches such as medication, self-help, communication, education and complementary treatment (Zamanzadeh, Jasemi, Valizadeh, Keogh, & Taleghani, 2015). Holistic nursing considers all aspects the patient and their effect on the process of treatment and the attitudes, opinions, cultures, emotions, and thoughts of patients are factored in as a contribution to patient's satisfaction, happiness, and recovery. Nurses in holistic care respect the dignity of the patient. The relationship between the nurses and patients is based on equality, relative openness, mutuality and respect (Zamanzadeh, Jasemi, Valizadeh, Keogh, & Taleghani, 2015). Thus, holistic care increases the depth of nurses' understanding the needs of patients. Educating patients on self-care and palliative care is part of holistic care, which improves the quality, physical and emotional well-being of the patient. Holistic care further increases self-confidence and self-awareness in patients and help nurses to realize and understand the true needs of patients. However, some factors influence holistic care, for example, limited knowledge, poor professional perceptions, unavailability of resources, inadequate clinical control, improper professional relations, incomplete reports from nurses and inadequate time (Zamanzadeh, Jasemi, Valizadeh, Keogh, & Taleghani, 2015).

Search Terms Used and the Results Found at Each Level

The search terms used in the paper were based on the hierarchy levels. From the articles reviewed, studies that were valuable were the least frequently encountered to mean there are few studies on holistic care. Most studies were case series and represented level IV evidence because they contained retrospective studies with a lower evidence level, but still, they had some valuable information. These reviews had no control group in their studies and had methodological limitations particularly their research designs. Thus, all articles, reports and systematic reviews in level IV showed little quality evidence indicating poorly done studies that could be applied in a clinical setting. Few studies were found to occur in level I and II making such articles more reliable and applicable in holistic care. As cohort studies, they showed that holistic care improves quality of care presentation a high level of evidence. Thus, there were fewer filtered sources with a randomized experimental design to provide a more definitive answer and reduced bias among the articles reviewed (Murad, Asi, Alsawas, & Alahdab, 2016).

A Useful Tip about Conducting an Effective Literature Search

When conducting an effective literature research, it is important to evaluate each source particularly meta-analyses and systematic reviews with the highest level of evidence as most of them have already been filtered and gone through an evaluation process (Robeson, Dobbins, DeCorby, & Tirilis, 2010). In this case, you will move up the pyramid in case your quest for sources is successful.

References

Murad, M. H., Asi, N., Alsawas, M., & Alahdab, F. (2016). New evidence pyramid. Evidence-based medicine, ebmed-2016.

Robeson, P., Dobbins, M., DeCorby, K., & Tirilis, D. (2010). Facilitating access to pre-processed research evidence in public health. BMC public health, 10(1), 95.

Zamanzadeh, V., Jasemi, M., Valizadeh, L., Keogh, B., & Taleghani, F. (2015). Effective factors in providing holistic care: A qualitative study. Indian journal of palliative care, 21(2), 214.