Contemporary Nursing Of Persons With Chronic Illness

Abstract

Adherence was a popular term describing the care activities of persons with chronic illness, particularly those with Chronic Kidney Disease. The concept of adherence was a response to the criticism of the term ‘compliance’ in which the perspective of care was towards appreciating patients as objects of care and the implication of the role of the patient as a passive participant. This paper will clarify the concept of ‘adherence’ and propose ‘concordance’ as a more contemporary and appropriate term described within the view of human science. Using Walker and Avant’s (2005) concept analysis approach, an extensive review of literature from 2007 to 2010 was conducted. Using keywords to define the scope of the review, thirteen articles were selected, Defining related concepts, model cases, borderline cases, contrary cases, antecedents, consequences and empirical referents were presented to explain and describe the concept. There were more than 50 articles was retrieved. Those were examined and 30 articles were used to the next step. From 30 articles, finally 13 were selected to support this paper. There were published from 2007 to 2010. This paper also using 1 dictionary, 1 textbook, and 3 pages of related websites for analizing the concept of adherence. From analyzing and synthesizing the concept of adherence, it was found that the contemporary term of ‘concordance’ is more appropriate to delineate the care of persons with chronic illness. Concept analyses should provide opportunities for developing contemporary nursing practice and engage in nursing practice to improve quality of nursing care of persons with chronic illness.