Nursing Emotional and Cognitive Responses

Queston: Describe the emotional and cognitive responses an individual is likely to experience in response to a newly diagnosed condition with a poor prognosis? Answer: Detection of possible consequence of individuals current health status is termed as prognosis. Hence, prognosis should be firm, so that it can properly diagnose, evaluate and treat serious diseases. Poor prognosis immensely affects the emotional and cognitive responses of individuals. Poor prognosis may take place because of various reasons. These are: associated illnesses, less or no experience of health care professionals, patients negligence and negligence of their family members in accessing health care services. Scientists Mack and Smith (2012) have stated that strong and transparent communication about preferences and outcomes always represents a vital solution in health care set up (Mack and Smith, 2012). Counseling patient with no proper training is detrimental for the patient and also very dangerous for the untrained healthcare professionals. However, health care personnel should have the capacity and knowledge to recognize emotional responses of the patients for different reasons. Suppose an individual is suffering from common flu and it is poorly diagnoses as immunodeficiency syndrome, which is life threatening, may affect that patient psychologically and patient may become depressed, which in turn can affect his/her behavioral and physical responses. Newly diagnosed individuals may express their emotions frankly or may hide their feelings (Bockorny and Dasanu, 2012). Whether the feelings are expressed or suppressed, on communication a diagnosis, this will definitely affect individual patient. Emotional changes can harm an individuals daily living activities and also he/she might prefer to become socially isolated due to anxiety and worry about associated illnesses. He/she might b ehave rough with the family members and that might create a distance from the closed ones. Hence, this is one of the worst parts of a poor prognosis condition of an individual. Comorbid psychological illnesses, such as: mood disorders, schizophrenia, panic disorder and neurological impairments can cause behavioral and cognitive disturbances, which may include dementia, stroke, Parkinsons disease and these can complicate the progression of effective coping. Acute illness (myocardial infarction), when supposed as severe, can trigger medically significant demoralization, anxiety and depression that compromise the spirit (Stone, 2004). Cognitive responses are those reactions of what we think while listening to others messages. This has a great effect on the psychological process, because if the message is interested the listener communicate relevant (Williams et al., 2013). In case of poor prognosis the message can negatively affect a patient and negative affectivity counts various negative emotions, for example: fear, guild, contempt, disgust, nervousness and anger as well. Poor coping skills and stress can lead to different unpleasant events. Negative feeling because of poor prognosis not only affect an individuals health status, but also affect his/her psychological responses and this sequentially affect his/her daily living activities. Different guidelines are present that recommends about disclosing poor prognosis. The instruction need to be properly executed in the health care sector. Experienced and responsible staffs need to be recruited to correctly review and monitor these rules. Appropriate actions need to be taken in case of any violation is reported. This approach will surely diminish the possibility of inadequate prognosis, improve patient wellbeing and maintain good quality of life. References Bockorny, B. and Dasanu, C. (2012). Poor prognosis of Hodgkin variant of Richter transformation in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia treated with cladribine - Response to Jamroziak etal.British Journal of Haematology, 158(2), pp.289-289. Mack, J. and Smith, T. (2012). Reasons Why Physicians Do Not Have Discussions About Poor Prognosis, Why It Matters, and What Can Be Improved.Journal of Clinical Oncology, 30(22), pp.2715-2717. Stone, A. (2004).A poor prognosis. Washington, DC: OWL. Williams, P., Cribbet, M., Rau, H., Gunn, H. and Czajkowski, L. (2013). The Effects of Poor Sleep on Cognitive, Affective, and Physiological Responses to a Laboratory Stressor.Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 46(1), pp.40-51.