Summary and Projections



Summary and Projections

The Theory of Human Caring

The theory of human caring has a direct as well as indirect influence on health science and nursing curricula, research, pedagogy and practice. The theory of human caring pursues new paradigm science and human science methods for inquiry and treatment. The worldview and approach based on feminist values have intersected with the fields of humanities, feminist studies, critical scholarship, philosophy and ethics, as well as poststructuralist thinking with respect to postmodern thinking and other modern and critical approaches in academe.

Recently released social policy statement by American Nurses Association also verifies the effects of the theory on the field of nursing. The statement confirms that, since 1980, nursing practice and philosophy have been affected by a detailed elaboration of the science of human caring and its ability to integrate with the traditional treatment and diagnosis of human behaviour to illness and health.

Similarly, the nursing definition highly acknowledges four necessary features of modern nursing practice. One of the features is providing a caring relationship which facilitates health and curing. While the debate still exists on the theory of human care and paradigm level, human caring is acknowledged as the ethical foundation for caring in nursing as well as other professions.

There are several examples of Jean Watson's theory of human caring and its impacts on nursing profession and education and research and practice. The most important representation of the work has been through the University of Colorado's centre for human caring. The centre deals with ontological, epistemological, practice and methodological inquiries. It comprises almost all methods of knowing, doing and being with respect to practice, knowledge and teaching of human caring. Actualization of this theory needs new ways of being, thinking and acting that converge. For some the work may be obvious, concrete, ...