Evolution of Nursing Definition

¶ … Nursing There are significant distinctions that are available to compare and contrast the definition of nursing provided in the 2010 Social Policy Statement (SPS) with the definition of nursing provided by Florence Nightingale in Notes on Nursing. Nightingale is one of the founders of nursing theory and wrote her work in the late 19th century. She was one of the first nurses to take an analytical approach to some of the insights about the field that she garnered. Her definition of nursing states: "What nursing has to do ..

is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him" (Nursing Theories, N.d.) Nightingale believed deeply that a nurse could put their patient in a position of balance relative to their environment and crafted many techniques to this end.

By contrast, the American Nursing Association (ANA) and their SPS has the advantage of accessing the culmination of all the founding nursing that have been developed in the field, as well as over a century of research to broaden the foundation in which their definition is shaped. However, despite the differences, there are also similarities at the core of the concepts provided by the two sources.

The definition of nursing from 2010 SPS states that: "Nursing is the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations." (SPS, 2010) At the level of description, the SPS used several more modern nursing concepts to build their definition than Nightingale.

The pragmatic reason that the SPS can be more comprehensive in the way that they define the nurse's role in maintaining the patient's relationship with their environment is more specific by an order of magnitude. The concepts that Nightingale used to define nursing were basically built upon her own work and experience. Furthermore, they were also written at the most fundamental levels of theory and were vague enough at this level to be applied to a wide range of different specific applications.

Her theories also helped to build an awareness of the role that a nurse can play in the healing process and helped to spark development in the field.

The SPS statement also has the advantage of knowing how the environment can influence a patient's health before a problem occurs, which has introduced a more precise statement on health "promotion" and "optimization." The causes of many diseases were not clear during Nightingale's period and some of this was attributed to supernatural forces; she reflected the art of nursing in her statement that, "the art of nursing, as now practiced, seems to be expressly constituted to unmake what God had made disease to be, viz., a reparative process" (Nursing Theories, N.d.).

The modern worldview found in contemporary nursing theory uses more of a materialist approach, regardless of one's personal beliefs, to diagnose diseases and treat conditions. The ability to understand the many of the biological processes that occur related to these conditions allow nurses the ability to "optimize" health. However, since the ANA has the advantage of.