Contemporary Nursing Theories

This approach looks at the development of individuals from birth to death. That basically means that from the time of conception , change within the individuals begin to occur and we as individuals begin to change until the time of death (Boyd & Bee,2009).The main focus is based on the idea that an individual’s development is not completed during adulthood but it’s a process

Theory may raise the ability of individuals and recognize the influences of dispositional, interpersonal, situational, and philosophical aspects that enable one to do so.

The application of nursing theories to the nursing care practice promotes the structure of care. It intensifies the importance of an individual in need and facilitates the environment of healing. By integrating the major nursing theories into the daily nursing routine in the hospitals or the community, and understanding their meaning, nursing profession flourishes as a unique science separate from the discipline of law. One of the theories looked at is humanbecoming by Rosemarie Rizzo Parse. As Smith & Parker, (2015) explains, humanbecoming nurses’ involvement in the care of the patient is influenced by the utmost importance that arise from the point of view of their patient at that particular time. The nurse then and recognizes the wishes, benefits and desires of the patient and prioritizes her care in such a way.

She related spirituality and science to present a new definition of adaptation and related scientific and philosophical assumptions. Roy’s stance on the philosophy emphasizes that nurses see persons as co-extensive with their physical and social environments. Roy has used the term cosmic unity to describe that persons and the earth have common patterns and mutuality of relations and meaning and that persons through thinking and feeling capacities, rooted in consciousness and meaning, are accountable for deriving , sustaining, and transforming the universe. These ideas were explained in a 1997 publication and included in the 1999 revision of the theorist’s textbook on the model.

The metaparadigm of nursing consists of four parts comprised by Jacqueline Fawcett, in 1984, in her seminal work (Alligood, 2014). The metaparadigm she developed served to provide direction and guidance for the nursing framework already in use and became an organization tool for theories already in use (Alligood, 2014). The four parts being person, health, environment, and nursing. The four components of the metaparadigm concept of nursing is important to nursing theory because they are the key areas of focus of patient care, and the metaparadigm is designed to differentiate nursing from other specialties (Alligood, 2014). It is this use of theories that makes nursing a profession and guides professional nursing practice, research, and education (Alligood, 2014).

Theories are a set of interrelated concepts that give a systematic view of a phenomenon (an observable fact or event) that is

Nursing has developed into a profession, in which many theories have been developed and presented in order to lend guidance for purposeful and meaningful practice. In general, nursing theories are based on four concepts that collectively make up the nursing metaparadigm: person, environment, health, and nursing. These four concepts represent a commonality in the nursing profession (Tourville & Ingalls, 2003). This paper will

The theoretical basis for public and community nurses began in the nineteenth century with Florence Nightingale. Nightingale believed in the prevention and surveillance of diseases. She further believed that a disease was more prevalent in poor environments. She proved that good health was more prevalent with a good environment for instance providing adequate ventilation, clean water, warmth, light, and cleanliness during the Crimean War (Allender, Rector, & Warner, 2014).

One nursing theory that has influenced my values and goals as a nurse is Jean Watsons Theory of human caring: Transpersonal Caring as the Fulcrum. Watson believed every person needs an interconnection with others and caring promotes this need. Through caring, a nurse can help the patient have balance and harmony of mind, body, and soul (Cherry & Jacob, 2014).

Theories have been defined with terms such as stages, incremental, multidimensional. Each theory has its’ contributions to and impact on the understanding of human

The purpose of the nursing theories is to provide an interrelating framework focusing on the nursing practice. The defined nursing theories promote better patient care, improve the status of nursing profession, and improve the communication between the nurses, and provide guidance to the researches and education (Keefe, 2011). Not all nursing theories have the same meanings; however, they play the important role of explaining the key concepts and principles of nursing practice in understanding way.

Watson made use of her 8th carative factor to define environment. “Attending to supportive, protective and/or corrective mental, physical, societal and spiritual environments”. In recent discussions, environment is considered in the context of a human-environment field. This field forms an “unbroken wholeness and connectedness of all (subject-object-person-environment-nature-universe-all living things)” (Jean Watson’s theory of nursing,

Nursing as a profession is based on concrete (scientific, philosophical, behavioral, social, and humanities among others), concepts and theories by past and current nursing theorists. These theorists have helped shape the profession from 19th century till date. New theories are emerging due to advance in health care, as off-shoot of previous theories and also as addition to suit present day application.

Throughout the history of nursing, there have been many nursing theorists who have each made significant contributions towards the shaping of nursing knowledge. Each of these theorists have differing perspectives and interpretations of how each domain of the nursing metaparadigm fit into their respective theories. The four domains of the nursing metaparadigm are: person, environment, health and illness, and nursing. The purpose of this reflection is to provide an overview of the domains related to the metaparadigm of nursing as well as to introduce this author’s perspective on their developing personal philosophy of nursing. In this paper, the author will take a closer look at each of these areas, how they are individually defined, and how they each fit into the nursing metaparadigm as a whole. At the conclusion of this overview, readers will be introduced to how these theorists and their perspectives have enabled this author to begin to create their own philosophy of nursing.

By outlining the focus and boundaries of the discipline nursing is able to highlight areas of study that are significant to nursing education and practice, all of which can be traced back to the fundamental concepts. These central ideas feature as integral to nursing development and continue to demonstrate their influence by shaping the way nurses learn and do. The concepts of person, health, environment and nursing are all interrelated, as are the concepts put forward by Newman, Smith, Dexheimer-Pharris and Jones (2008), and can be identified as prominent in nursing studies and the development of nursing theories. The nursing theories based on these fundamental concepts serve as the building blocks for all nursing knowledge and as Smith and Parker (2010) explain “the primary purpose of nursing theories is to further the development and understanding of nursing practice” (p. 8). The structure of knowledge as described by Smith and Parker provides a clear example of how nursing metaparadigms have implications for all levels of nursing theory, education and research from the most abstract or global concepts to the more concrete