What is reflective practice and its importance in nursing?

Write a Reflection within the professional clinical practice.

Reflection in a concept within the professional clinical practice which has a significant impact on the health care delivery, along with that quality and safety of the care provided to the patients. It has to be mentioned in this context that providing health care to the diverse patient populations is a profession that demands a continuous development and in order to continue to improve the practice standards and adhere to the ever-changing care delivery guidelines it is crucial for the health care delivery constructs to be able to revisit their own practice details and discover their strengths and weaknesses (Devenny  & Duffy, 2014). The reflection or reflective practice provides the health care providers with the optimal frameworks for revisiting their practice and maintain a practice that is concurrent with the latest guidelines and addresses each of the care needs of the patient population. This essay will attempt to present a position statement on the multifactorial benefits associated with the reflective practice and how it can be incorporated with success in the heath care scenario to ensure best practice. This essay will define reflective practice, the components of reflective practice in nursing, how effective it is in clinical setting, the benefits and pitfalls if any, and concluding with a verdict. The position of the authors in this regard is that reflection is an essential component for ensuring patient safety and meeting the quality benchmarks for the care delivery across different care settings.

Reflective practice can be defined by the method of studying, exploring and analyzing the different factors associated with the experience of a professional event and be able to discover any flaws and improve the performance statistics. It has been considered to be a tool that is exceptionally essential for the professionals to continue the learning process or the professional development all throughout their lives. When applied to the professional scenario of nursing reflection has to be the practice that has fundamental importance. Researchers are of the opinion that reflection is a tool that has immense influence in both nursing practice and education all across the globe. As explained by the Hayes et al. (2015), reflection is a practice that is essential for a care delivery practice that is both effective and patient centered. Hence, reflection has been associated with the practice scenario with a considerable emphasis to a point where the legislative practice standards and the protocols have incorporated the reflective practice as an essential segment of the professional roles and responsibilities as well. According to the standard  of the registered nurse practice standards issued by the NMBA or the Nursing and Midwifery board of Australia, the nurses are required to “develop practice through reflection on experiences, knowledge, actions, feelings and beliefs to identify how these shape practice”. Similarly the code of conduct by the NMBA and the code of ethics also mandate the nursing profession to incorporate reflection into the aspect of practice to ensure improved safety and effectiveness of the car provided (Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au, 2018).

Components of reflective practice in nursing

Exploring the components of reflection in the nursing practice, it has to be mentioned that reflective practice is facilitated in the nursing care scenario by the use of various reflective models (Sherwood & McNeill, 2017). One of the most commonly and abundantly utilized Models in the reflective practice includes the Gibbs reflection models. The main components associated with this particular model includes description of the event, feelings of the professional, analysis of the key issues of the event, evaluation of the positive and negative aspects associated with the event and finally an action plan based on the strengths and weak nesses discovered regarding the nursing professional with regards to the care skills. Other notable refection models that are utilized in the nursing care scenario includes the reflection mode by Akin and Murphy, with components description of the situation, analysis of the feelings and knowledge, evaluation ad identification of the learning needs. The third component of reflective practice that is a little less commonly utilized in the present day nursing care scenario includes the Johns reflection model. the components of this reflection model is also very similar to the other reflection models with description, reflection, influencing factors and learning which is equivalent to the action plan step of the Gibbs model. Lastly, the Rolfe model of reflection is also a common tool to be utilized in the nursing, especially in nursing education. Here the components are very simple, ‘What’, which describes the event or experience, ‘so what’, analyzing and evaluating all the different contextual factors associated with the experience and a ‘now what’ which describes the further learning needs and the actions to be taken to address those needs. Hence, it has to be mentioned that there are various different models or frameworks available in the nursing care scenario to implement reflective practice in the care scenario however, all of the components, when applied to the clinical setting, facilitate the nurses to implement a more autonomous take to the nursing practice and be able to be aware of their own strengths and limitations in their scope of practice (Jacobs, 2016).

Considering the potential benefits of the reflective practice, it has to be mentioned that over the last decade, the reflective practice has developed as an essential attribute for developing care professionals who are autonomous, critical, and advanced practitioners, as discussed by the Joyce-McCoach et al. (2013), reflection can be considered as a continues cycle where the details of the experience of the event and the reflection on those details are intricately interrelated. Elaborating more, the authors have stated that nursing is a public based service where care needs and demands of the patient will differ based on a variety of different contextual factors. The reflective practice provides the nurses with the opportunity to examine their own actions and their subsequent impact and match them with the care safety and effectiveness outcome to help understand the shortcomings and avoid taking similar actions in the future, In support, the authors have stated that reflection is not equivalent to revisiting previous practice, reflection requires openmindedness, courage, and a willingness to accept in the nursing professional to be beneficial and effective (Knight, 2012).

Benefits of reflective practice for healthcare professionals and patients

It has to be mentioned in this context that th benefits of th refkective practice is not limited to the care professionals only, the benefits of the reflective practice is associated with a variety of benefits to the patients as well. It has to be mentioned in this context that reflective practice serves as an open outlet for the care professional to discover all their professional weaknesses to be improved which ensures the same mistakes never repeated again the clinical scenario. Along with that, as per the Mabbott (2012), the medical errors are one of the greatest contributors to impaired patient safety and the medical errors are mainly facilitated by the burnout and lack or job satisfaction or validation. According to the Miller (2014), the art of reflective practice not only provides the opportunity for professional growth and skill enhancement to the nurses it also providers the nurses with the chance for self scrutiny and revalidation which gives the nurses with the opportunity to overcome burnout and enhance the job satisfaction. This chain reaction in turn reduces the frequency of medical errors and leads to different patient safety issues. As per the Bulman and Schutz, (2013), in the nursing care scenario, reflection is facilitated in reflection-on-action which is the most concurrent form of reflection that provides the students with the opportunity to review the events of the past practice. The second section is the reflection in action which requires a higher level of self awareness and scrutiny of personal actions and the action providing an opportunity for advanced level of professional growth applicable for acute or chronic care settings. Hence it has to be mentioned that reflective practice acts as potent tools for ensuring optimal performance standards and patient safety. However, there are a few drawbacks of the reflective practice as well. first and foremost, it has to be mentioned that reflective practice is extremely time consuming, and hence the extra time taken by the reflective practice becomes a considerable burden on the care planning and delivery requiring the nursing professional to rush the entire process. As per the Chacko and Sreerenjini, the lack of guidance in the reflective practice can also serve as a potential drawback as well which can misguide the nursing professionals with action plan formation and analysis of the issues correctly.

On a concluding note, it has to be mentioned in this context that for the nursing profession, continuous skill development is very important for optimal care delivery and be able to provide care in a manner that is in accordance with the guidelines and legislation. Despite the few drawbacks, reflective practice serves as an excellent tool, for achieving this care goal and complying with the ever changing practice guidelines and protocols. Along with that, the essay has argued effectively that reflective practice is not just thinking about practice; rather it is an active process of reflecting, analyzing and learning. And along with that, it directly and indirectly impacts the patient safety as well. Hence, reflection or reflective practice should be implemented across all care settings to not just facilitate professional growth but also foster improved patient safety

References:

Bulman, C., & Schutz, S. (Eds.). (2013). Reflective practice in nursing. John Wiley & Sons.

Chacko, B., & Sreerenjini, B. (2012). Reflective Practice in Nursing. International Journal of Nursing Education, 4(2).

Devenny, B., & Duffy, K. (2014). Person-centred reflective practice. Nursing Standard, 28(28), 37-43.

Hayes, C., Power, T., Davidson, P., Daly, J., & Jackson, D. (2015). Nurse interrupted: Development of a realistic medication administration simulation for undergraduate nurses. Nurse Education Today, 35(9), 981-986.

Jacobs, S. (2016). Reflective learning, reflective practice. Nursing, 46(5), 62-64.

Joyce-McCoach, J., Parrish, D., Andersen, P., & Wall, N. (2013). Unlocking reflective practice for nurses: Innovations in working with master of nursing students in Hong Kong. Nurse Education In Practice, 13(5), 388-392.

Knight, S. (2015). Realising the benefits of reflective practice. Nursing Times, 111(23), 17-19.

Lauren Caldwell RN, B. S. N. (2013). The importance of reflective practice in nursing. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 6(3), 319.

Mabbott, I. (2012). Reflective Practice in NursingReflective Practice in Nursing Bulman Chris Schutz Sue (Eds) Blackwell Publishing £25.50 256pp 9781405173605 1405173602. Nursing Management, 19(8), 8-8.

Miller, L. (2014). Reflective practice for appraisal and revalidation in general practice: towards new learning and improved patient safety?. MEDLINE, 25(2), 119.

Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia – Professional standards. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Professional-standards.aspx

Sherwood, G., & McNeill, J. (2017). Reflective practice: providing safe quality patient-centered pain management. Pain management, 7(3), 197-205