From critical care to comfort care: the sustaining value of humour

Dean, Ruth Anne Kinsman; Major, Joanne E

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2702.2007.02090.x

Cited by 88 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Patently, there will be times when humor is not appropriate [30]. However, according to most studies [31–33] humor in care is something valuable which fosters a relationship, eases tension and more. Using physical contact and humor when caring for a patient requires great mindfulness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patients' and Caregivers' Attributes in a Meaningful Care Encounter: Similarities and Notable Differences

Snellman

Gustafsson

2012

ISRN Nursing

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In today's healthcare system, there is an imbalance between what patients expect of caregivers' care and their perception of the care they get. How is it possible to reduce this imbalance? The aim of this paper was to describe attributes associated with meaningful encounters in the Swedish healthcare system based on patients' and caregivers' written narratives and to note the differences and similarities between the attributes identified by the two groups. This paper is a qualitative descriptive study. The analysis was guided by qualitative content analyses. Based on patients' narratives, attributes associated with a meaningful encounter fell into four categories: the kind-hearted caregiver, the thoughtful caregiver, the mutually oriented caregiver, and the helpful caregiver. Based on caregivers' narratives, the attributes were categorized as being humane, caring through physical contact, caring by nurturing communication, joy and laughter in care, and a sense of mutuality. The results show that there are both similarities and differences in patients' and caregivers' opinions about the attributes of a meaningful encounter. Knowing more about the attributes associated with meaningful encounters makes it possible for caregivers to individualize care for patients and makes it easier to help and support patients in what they most need support with.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patients' and Caregivers' Attributes in a Meaningful Care Encounter: Similarities and Notable Differences

Snellman

Gustafsson

2012

ISRN Nursing

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“…For Jean, humour use may ‘simply’ humanise the interaction (Dean & Major 2008). However, Heather and Kay’s harsh humour initiation about potential areas of discord may also indicate to Jean their (i) awareness of pertinent issues, e.g.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Harsh humour: a therapeutic discourse

McCreaddie

2010

Health &Amp; Social Care in the Community

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Humour research in healthcare has tended to focus on rehearsed as opposed to spontaneous humour. This paper reports an empirical example of spontaneous humour in healthcare interactions: a negative case analysis from a constructivist grounded theory study. Twenty Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS)-patient interactions and CNS pre- and postinteraction audio diaries provided the baseline data corpus. Follow-up interviews, field notes, focus groups and observations serviced theory generation with a constant comparison approach to data collection and analyses. Interpretative and illustrative frameworks incorporating humour theories, non-laughter humour support, discursive features and prosodical features of speech were applied to all data. This paper is based upon the negative case comprising a 90-minute follow-up interview and 10 hours of field note observations. The negative case - a CNS working with female drug users' sexual and reproductive health needs - contradicted emerging findings from the baseline data corpus. First, the negative case had greater awareness of humour, deliberately initiated humour and recognised parameters and exclusion zones. Second, a good patient personal was evident in the baseline data corpus but the negative case worked with 'bad' patients. Accordingly, a specific type of humour - harsh humour - was evident in the negative case. Harsh humour used areas of potential discord (e.g. drug use) as a focus of humour creation and maintenance. The deliberate initiation of harsh humour enabled the negative case and her colleagues to achieve their aims by engaging effectively with unpredictable, reluctant and recalcitrant patients. The negative case demonstrates how humour can be used to therapeutically enhance healthcare interactions with disenfranchised individuals. Humour is not superficial but integral to the accomplishment of key aspects of interactions. Health and social care workers should consider the potential for therapeutic humour to engage and maintain all patients - disenfranchised or otherwise - in healthcare interactions.

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“…From nearly 300 hours of observations, the researchers found that humour served to “enable co-operation, relieve tensions, develop emotional flexibility, and to ‘humanise’ the healthcare experience.”10 The two studies also included conversations with patients as well as health professionals, regarding how they felt about humour in medical settings. The authors conclude: “The value of humour resides not in its capacity to alter physical reality, but in its capacity for affective or psychological changes which enhances the humanity of the experience, for both care providers and the recipients of care.”…”

Section: The Value Of Humourmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humour in health care

Launer¹

2016

Postgraduate Medical Journal

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From critical care to comfort care: the sustaining value of humour

Cited by 88 publications

References 29 publications

Patients' and Caregivers' Attributes in a Meaningful Care Encounter: Similarities and Notable Differences

Patients' and Caregivers' Attributes in a Meaningful Care Encounter: Similarities and Notable Differences

Harsh humour: a therapeutic discourse

Humour in health care

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