Nursing Philosophy

Nursing Philosophy

The 4 Nursing Metaparadigms

Person and Client

In order to enable nurses with systematically organizing the huge amount of information so that it makes sense to a particular client, the concept of person was defined by most of the early models. A person was understood by the theorists as human needs competing system, a system of interrelated parts, or an entity having not only social, psychological and biological aspects, but also spiritual dimensions (Fawcett, 1996). Every framework drew the nurses' attention to specific multiple human experience aspects in order to enable the nurses to understand every instance of illness as well as wellness in relation to the person's body, situations and feelings. Every model portrayed a concept about the whole individual, with the aim of assisting nurses in understanding as to how the implications of some actions or interventions may systematically be individualized for the purpose of benefitting all the aspects of the concerned individual.

Environment

Every conceptual structure was aimed at reflecting an understanding that the concerned person is not only a part of the environmental system, but also interacts with it. The person's social and family ties, the health care system, the community and the geopolitical issues that adversely affect health can be considered a part of this environment. The nurses' increasing appreciation of working in a larger context of all experiences of illness and wellness was shaped by the early conceptual structures or frameworks. These frameworks provided a future in which nurses could spearhead advances in the health and social care policy, community development and health promotion (Fullbrook, 2007).

Health

Due to the fact that nursing practice is socially bound to improving the health of individuals as well as society, the articulation of proper nursing goal was a great struggle for early theorists. The early theorist defined health as far more than the absence of injuries or diseases, rather, they defined it as the state of total well-being towards which all individuals may strive. Defining health in this manner reflected a proper vision of nursing care, which applies to individuals as well as society including all sick or well clients. Apart from that, it recognized that people suffering from chronic diseases may be disregarded and compromised by spiritual or psychological challenges amongst the physically well persons. Even though optimal health is not considered to be achievable, the concept provided guidance to nurses in helping the clients to reach productive and satisfying outcomes (Draper, 1995).

Nursing

Every early conceptual structure or framework comprised of a unique definition of nursing, which links the client's view with the understanding of the person's environment, health goals and life. Although each conceptual framework was aimed at different terms and different alignment of ideas, it is built on a discrete subset of knowledge presenting a complete and coherent system of belief about nursing practice. Due to the fact that most nursing scholars of the time period had the assumptions that a model will soon become dominant, strict competition occurred among the frameworks. Over the passage of time, framework application in ...