Holistic Approach to Nursing and Cultural Approach to Nursing

In order to explore my philosophy it is important that I be aware of how I would define nursing. “Definitions of nursing, like nursing itself, are dynamic; nursing is constantly evolving to meet new needs and take account of new knowledge.”(Clark, 2003, add p. # for direct quote)

I define my philosophy of nursing within the three nursing domains of person, health, and environment. My goal is to communicate the importance of nursing as a knowledge-based career, depending not only on the nurse fulfilling her role but also on the patient’s compliance. A patient must learn to provide self-care at home in the same capacity as the nurse would provide care in the clinical setting. I discuss various subjects within nursing. I explain why I want to be a nurse, what I believe a nurse’s role is, the different domains of nursing, and where I believe nursing will be in the future. My philosophy demonstrates the interdependence of the nursing domains. You cannot fully evaluate a person without evaluating their health,

Care and culture are the key constructs that make up the Culture Care Theory. This theory differed from other nurses’ work or mindset because nurse leaders relied heavily up on the four metaparadigm concepts of person, environment, health, and nursing to explain nursing (McFarland and Wehbe-Alamah, 2015). Leininger realized that those four metaparadigm concepts were to limited in its scope regarding nursing and culture and care ideologies. Interestingly, care and culture were excluded from the metaparadigm. “It is not logical to use nursing to explain nursing” (McFarland and Wehbe-Alamah, 2015). That is definitely a contradiction in terms and represents scholarly research

Kristen M. Swanson may not be as well-known as Florence Nightingale in the nursing field, but she has made great contributions with the Theory of Caring that has been used in many hospitals, even internationally, for their framework to guide patient care. Through the study of her practice, I have realized much of her practice is reflected in mine. This paper will present the basic concept of nursing known as the metaparadigm concepts of person, health, environment, and nursing as presented by Swanson, as well as provide my own philosophy of nursing, which in many ways mirrors Swanson’s.

Unlike other nursing theorists, Leininger did not put emphasis on basic concepts of person, environment, health, and nursing, which are usual nursing metaparadigms that most nursing theorists utilize. Leiningers theory instead, emphasized different metaparadigms. First, she considers nursing as both a discipline and a profession. The term ‘nursing’ according to her, cannot explain the phenomenon of nursing. Instead, ‘care’ has the greatest explanatory power to explain nursing. Leininger (1995) views ‘caring’ as the verb counterpart to the noun care and refers it to a feeling of compassion, interest and concern for people. When Leininger’s definition of care is compared to other transcultural scholars’ definitions, it appears that her view of care is wider than, for example, that of Orque et al. (1983), who depicted care as goal-oriented nursing activities, in which nurses recognize the patients’ ethnic and cultural features and integrate them into the nursing process as cited in (Giger, Davidhizar, Purnell, Harden, Phillips, & Strickland, 2007). Second, the nursing profession uses the term ‘person’ in a way that is limiting and binding, as the concept of

The nursing metaparadigm concepts described by Fawcett (as cited in McEwen & Willis, 2011), are a primary phenomena of interest to a discipline, which identifies globally by ways in which, nursing can deal with those phenomena in a distinctive and applicable manner. The functional aspects of the meta-paradigm according to Kim (as cited in McEwen & Willis, 2011), involve a combination of intellectual and

Since 1970s, person, nursing, health, and environment are considered as the core concepts of nursing theories by many nursing theorists.

Everyone’s values and beliefs about the profession of nursing are all different. The four concepts of nursing are interrelated and all mean something different to every person, too. Throughout this paper, I will be reflecting on my values and beliefs about nursing through the four concepts while comparing them to a nursing theorist with views that are most similar to my own.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss my personal beliefs pertaining to the profession of nursing. As well I will discuss the (4) metaparadigms in nursing which are known as; human beings, environment, health, and nursing, and my personal beliefs on these concepts and how they have similarities to the nursing philosophy of a nursing theorist.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and summarize the philosophy of nursing and how nursing theory guides this nurse’s practice. Information used to do this paper was retrieved from the online database, Nursing and Allied Health Source and CINAHL through the SJR State Library. Our textbook, The Conceptual Foundations and the Merriam- Webster Dictionary website was also used. Some of the search phrases used were Jean Watson theory of human caring, philosophy of nursing, and Watson’s philosophy and theory of human caring in nursing on the online database. The word philosophy was also searched on the Merriam- Webster Dictionary website. There was an abundance information throughout my research on

The two theories that have helped to form my personal perspective on nursing are Erickson; and Rogers. Helen Erickson’s model is based on caring for an individual patient based on their own unique needs and perspective (Nursing Theories and Models, 2017). Erickson’s model took concepts from several other theorists such as Maslow, Padget, Seyle, and Lazarus and combined them to create a nursing model that takes care of each individual patient based on their needs ( Reed, 2017). This theory helps me to be more cognizant of the individual needs of my patient, not all patients regardless of disease process are the same. Each patient may have different underlying factors or circumstances that affect their health and current situation. Rogers’ theory is broader, viewing nursing as both an art and science, promoting health and wellbeing to patients regardless of where they are (Nursing Theories and Models, 2017). The science of nursing involves the knowledge and research of nursing, and the art is applying that science for the betterment of the patient. This theory views an individual as part

Each professional discipline has a responsibility to identify concepts that provide a general description of the discipline. It is these concepts that comprise the profession’s metaparadigm (Fawcett, 1984). Much of the philosophy and theory of nursing stems from the work of Florence Nightingale. The diaries, letters, and books that she left behind containing her statements and beliefs have been fundamental to the development of the concepts comprising the nursing metaparadigm (Selanders, 2010). Fawcett’s (1984) stated there was a general consensus among scholars that the concepts of nursing were person, environment, health, and nursing.

Developing my personal metaparadigm began with me asking myself questions, such as, “what does nursing mean to me?” In researching theory more and more, I have found my personal philosophy has many similarities to Kolcaba’s metapardigm. Person, to me, would be defined as the patient and family I am caring for. The person requires unique assistance in their illness, while keeping in mind their different needs based upon their own culture, religion, and goals. Each person is distinct in that one person’s level of comfort is different from the next family I will be taking care of.

Florence Nightingale’s vision of nursing in the mid-1800s began an evolution of nursing philosophies and theories that encouraged the progression and development of nursing knowledge, quality of care, and the advancement of nursing from a vocation to an academic discipline and profession (Alligood, 2013, pp. 3-7). As nursing knowledge and theory flourished, it became necessary to structure nursing theories into an integrated system. Jacqueline Fawcett’s proposal of four global nursing concepts “as a nursing metaparadigm served as an organizing structure for existing nursing frame-works and introduced a way of organizing individual theoretical works in a meaningful structure” (Alligood, 2013, p. 4). The four concepts of the metaparadigm of nursing include: person, environment, health, and nursing. By understanding the history of nursing development and the metaparadigm of nursing, one can explore this author’s personal philosophy of nursing in respect to the four concepts of the metaparadigm of nursing.

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.