DQ: Examine change theories in scholarly literature

 DQ: Examine change theories in scholarly literature

Importance

Patients often require some level of physiological adaptation to maintain and maximize physiological integrity. Physiological adaptation is significant to professional practice because providers must understand that a client’s body goes through various alterations when responding to a disease process, illness, medical, and surgery intervention (Wang et al., 2020). Thus, acknowledging the alterations enable providers to provide appropriate care to help the patient return to a near-normal state of health. The concept is also significant to the health status of a patient population because it determines a patient’s ability to cope with their health state and adapt to an impaired physical state. If physiological adaptation is unresolved, health providers may face prolonged hospitalization rates, high readmission rates, and increased workload (Wang et al., 2020). Besides, patients may suffer from increased complications, high morbidity rates, increased healthcare costs.

Healthcare Disparities, Inequalities, and Interventions

All patient populations across the lifespan may be negatively affected by physiological adaptation if it goes unresolved. For instance, pregnant women, fetuses, and newborns may be negatively affected if potential prenatal complications are not identified promptly and appropriate interventions are implemented, resulting in complications during pregnancy, labor, and delivery (Silvestri & Silvestri, 2019). Besides, pediatric and adults patients may develop hypothermia and hyperthermia if the underlying disorders causing the symptoms are not corrected. Critically ill patients on ventilators may also develop complications if physiological adaptation to respiration is not resolved (Wang et al., 2020). The potential complications include alveolar over-distension, oxygen toxicity, cardiac complications, hypo/hyperventilation, and respiratory infections. In addition, post-op patients are at risk of postoperative complications, such as bleeding, pain, surgical site infection, due to a lack of appropriate interventions to promote optimal physiological adaptation and failure to monitor and intervene appropriately.

Healthcare resources to support evidence-based professional practice with regard to physiological adaptation include clinical trials, peer-reviewed journal articles, randomized clinical trials, treatment guidelines, practice guidelines, and best practices. The healthcare disparities can be addressed by incorporating health education into patient care to empower patients to progress toward their health goals (Escoffery et al., 2018). Health education should consider the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that can facilitate or deter the patient’s progress. Intrinsic factors include underlying conditions such as hypertension and obesity, whereas extrinsic factors include a patient’s social support system. Besides, health education should focus on improving patients’ safe care interventions and helping them modify their lifestyle to healthier lifestyle practices (Escoffery et al., 2018). In addition, health education should focus on empowering patients to maximize their areas of strength and improve on their weaknesses.

Legal & Ethical Considerations and Intervention Challenges

Ethical and legal implications arise in relation to physiological adaptation. Ethical issues surrounding the issue include beneficence, the moral duty to do good. Health providers are required to evaluate interventions and implement those that will provide the best possible outcomes while causing the least harm to the patient (AbuAbah et al., 2019). Legal implications arise with regards to privacy and confidentiality. Providers may face legal consequences if they fail to uphold the confidentiality of a patient’s health information without their consent or if there is a breach of privacy (AbuAbah et al., 2019).

Ethical dilemmas can be prevented by using the ethical decision-making model, which is a framework for resolving ethical dilemmas. The nurse should consider the ethical principles involved, individuals who will be affected, and the consequences of each decision. Legal consequences can be avoided by always seeking informed consent before assessing patients, initiating treatment, or sharing patient information (AbuAbah et al., 2019). Potential challenges to preventing failures in physiological adaptation include unhealthy lifestyle practices that lead to chronic illnesses such as sedentary lifestyle, high caloric intake, smoking, and excessive alcohol consumption. Potential challenges to resolving physiological adaptation include factors like antibiotic resistance, which may hinder successful recovery from bacterial infections.

Participants and Interdisciplinary Approach

The interdiscipl