The nurse as coach: a conceptual framework for clinical practice

Abstract

Purpose/objectives: To operationalize a professional educational counseling model for nurses that derives from the client's frame of reference and adds to the client's behavioral management of the impact of cancer, including self-care skills and cognitive control.

Data sources: Published literature and four years of clinical experience with 84 couples in which coaching behavior was applied in home-based intervention sessions.

Data synthesis: Nurse coaching behavior includes six dimensions. Attending to the Story, Encircling the Experience, inviting the Work, Exploring Solutions, Anchoring the Skill, and Setting Up Success.

Conclusions: Nurse coaching behavior is designed to facilitate the cognitive emotional processing of the cancer experience and to add to the patient and family member's repertoire of behavioral self-care and self-management skills. Future research is needed to evaluate the processes and outcomes of nurse coaching behavior when working with patients and family members experiencing cancer.

Implications for nursing practice: Nurse coaching provides a practice framework that complements patient teaching and supportive therapy as a method for enhancing self-care and self-management behavior for people with cancer and their family members.