Personal Nursing Theory
What is health/illness?
Health and illness are defined in many different ways by the patient, the clinical setting, and the health care profession. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely as the absence of disease of infirmity (1947). Health is a state of being that people define in relation to their own values, beliefs, culture, personality, and lifestyle. This would mean to say that each person has a personal concept of health.
(1996) explains that all people free of disease are not equally healthy. Illness, just like health, must be defined in terms of the individual. Health and illness are also phenomena embedded in a culture. Cultural contexts of health and illness are not the same in western and non-western countries. Take for example, the cause of illness in western countries are attributed to biomedical causes, whereas in the non-western countries, along with biomedical causes, these are also attributed to supernatural and imbalance between humans and nature. This shows that health cultures are part of the larger culture or tradition of a people. It may be a popular or folk system, or it may be a technical or scientific one.
Who is the patient?
The patient is the person who is the recipient of health care, like nursing care. The patient is central to the care being provided even though the care could affect not only the patient but families and communities as well. Because every person’s need is multidimensional, this also goes to say that every patient’s need is multidimensional. And for this reason, it is important that health care professionals such as nurses should provide care that is individualized to the needs of the patient.
What is the patient’s environment and how does it affect them?
The patient’s environment refers to all the possible conditions affecting the patient and the setting in which the health care needs occur. Take for example, people who live in an environment with distinct seasonal changes such as fall, winter, spring, and summer tend to act differently from those that live in geographical areas with stable temperatures and abundant sunlight and rain. As they act differently, it goes that their health cultures and status are also not the same and thus are affected differently from those living in other environments.
What is nursing?
Nursing is an art and a science. Nursing as an art means that a professional nurse learns to deliver care artfully with compassion, caring, and a respect for each patient’s dignity and personhood. As a science, nursing is based upon a body of knowledge that is always changing with new discoveries and innovations ( 2004). When nurses integrate the science and art of nursing into their practice, the quality of care provided to patients is at a level of excellence that benefits the clients in so many ways.
Nursing is a multidimensional profession which reflects the needs and values of society and implements the standards of professional performance and the standards of care, meets the needs of each patient, and integrates current research and evidence-based findings to provide the highest level of care. There are different theoretical nursing models which provide knowledge to improve practice, guide research and nursing curricula, and identify the domain and goals of nursing practice.
(1860) did not view nursing as a being limited to the administration of medications and treatments but rather as being oriented toward providing fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and adequate nutrition. Another nursing theory developed by and others (1960) emphasizes delivering nursing care for the whole person to meet the physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual needs of the patient.
What is nursing relationship and responsibilities with the patient?
The nurse-patient relationship is considered the foundation of nursing care, the context in which nurses practice. It is an interpersonal process that develops over time between patients and nurses. Elements of this process generally include a beginning or development of trust, middle or working phase, and an ending or termination phase within the context of caring, sharing, and goal orientation (2003).
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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