Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (also known as PSD) is experienced by a major part of people at some point in their life. In difficult life situations, be it personal pain, an injury, or death of a close person, people go through an emotional distress. The trauma of being physically and mentally hurt, losing a person, or being extremely worried for their life and health will cause physical and psychological hardships for people who are diagnosed with the stress disorder. As a result, nurses play an important role in counseling and treating patients who are in such condition. One of the primary objectives for nurses is to differentiate between different types of PSD, find the right path for the treatment, and adjust themselves and the patient to the process.
Types of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Nurses Response
Bereavement
This is the very first state of the feeling when a close person is gone. This can either be a family member or a friend, or a person who was loved and respected, any person there was a personal connection with. In this state a person is feeling the loss due to being deprived of the loved ones company he/she enjoyed and will now miss. In case of a personal trauma, where a person was hurt or assaulted in any way, they will feel emotional pain towards their own self-respect, health, and future life after the incident.
The nurse must respond according to the variations in the usage of terms and definitions in explaining the situation to the patient. The objectives of the evaluation itself are not as clear as they could be, because a nurse must understand the relation a person has towards the incident. As this is the primary period, the first month is the most intense, so the nurse will address the immediate factors such as fear, anger, guilt, and inability to believe or cope with the trauma.
Uncomplicated Bereavement
This type of feelings is as a rule sudden and might be periodic, so a patient will come to the hospital in a rush. A person might feel fine, but then suddenly, they will break down in a neurotic collapse. It is accompanied by loss of appetite, crying, closing in the self, feeling angry and depressed, and not wanting to share own feelings with other people, no matter how close.
This makes communication difficult for nurses, because the patient is closed. Even though there has been significant support, sometimes there is still a lack of resources to produce effective and specific evaluation of the patient. The responses are affected by education, family, and work while others are inborn, genetic, or caused by physical events. The nurse must address the most immediate emotional response and focus on the direct response.
Grief
Grief is generally defined as a more prolonged hardship due to the loss of a loved one by death. The period of grief has no expiry date and may last for undetermined amount of time. It is very hard to overcome.
Here, the difficulty in determining the cognitive-psychiatric reasons of why people are struck with such feelings and responses are analyzed. However, the amount of issues and causes is very large, so there is difficulty in the specific determinants. The longer the period, the more a person has to think about it. Therefore, nurses must determine their exact understanding and focus on the trauma.
Complicated Trauma
Complicated trauma makes it i