Abstract :
Individualized care is a part of nursing care services that considers personal characteristics related to clinical status of patients, lifestyles and preferences, participations in the decisions that will affect their care and in decision-making process. At the same time, individualized care deal with patients experiences (including events associated with illness, home, work and leisure time); behaviours and thoughts (including physical indicators and primarily preferred coping strategies); and perceptions (including meanings attributed to experiences and interpretations of events). Nurses applying individualized care know that patients are unigue individuals; organize nursing care regarding patients experiences, behaviours, thoughts and perceptions; plan nursing care together with patients. The traditional nursing culture that has task-oriented work and stereotyped hierarchical structure is an impediment to the delivery of individualized care. Besides, the transformation into clinical applications supporting individuality that will allow obtaining better results of patients is possible. Problems such as poor attitudes of nurses, lack of skills or small number of nurses, poor communication among team members and lack of interdisciplinary cooperation make individualized care more difficult. This literature review aims to examine individualized nursing care and the factors affecting it.
