Personal nursing philosophy and professional values

Nursing Theory

Nursing is a three-prong dynamic that must take place before a client is cared for in the best possible way. The first prong is based on the fact that a client/person is a holistic entity within a continually changing society. Clients can include individuals, families, communities or populations who possess unique strengths. Each client represents diversity in a number of different variables, such as age, gender, culture, ethnic background, sexual orientation, race, religion, socioeconomic status, lifestyle, values, and functional ability level. Clients are active partners in their healthcare and interact with the medical providers (Nyatanga, 2005).

The second prong, health, pertains to the degree of biological, physical, psychological, social, and spiritual functioning of the client on a wellness-illness continuum, instead of on the absence of disease. Health is impacted by developmental stages; social, economic, and cultural factors; personal decisions regarding lifestyle and values; genetic and environmental factors; and generational patterns. An individual's health is interdependent, interactive and continually transforming in relation to the community's entire health spectrum (Nyatanga, 2005)

The environment, or third prong, includes both internal and external conditions, situations and influences that interact with and have an impact on the client. Environment affects beliefs, values and health and includes psychological, physical, biological, social, spiritual, and cultural factors. Healthcare delivery systems must continually be modified to meet the clients' ever changing needs. A two-way relationship exists between the environment and healthcare delivery system (Nyatanga., 2005).

Nursing integrates with these three areas, since it incorporates art, science, discipline and professional expertise with its healthcare service components.. Professional nursing is founded on caring therapeutic relationships and consists of evidence-based interventions that result in positive outcomes. Nurses utilize theoretical- and research-based knowledge to provide direct and indirect delivery of healthcare through partnerships with clients and members of cross-functional teams. Nursing interacts with and responds to the environment and promotes health, maximizes the quality of life and maintains optimal functioning throughout the client's life. Nursing responsibilities include a variety of different roles, such as care provider, communicator, patient advocate, team member, leader, educator, and change agent (Johnson et. al, 2005).

The nursing theory of Joyce Fitzpatrick fits into this three-prong equation, where nursing is both a practice discipline and a profession that is concerned with caring and outcome-based research.

Fitzpatrick's underlining four factors of nursing include: person, health, wellness-illness and metaparadigm. Similar to what is presented above in nursing care, her term "person" integrates the concepts of both self and others and recognizes individuals as having unique biological, psychological, emotional, social, cultural, and spiritual attitudes. People are driven by honor and dignity, self-evaluation and growth and development and are influenced by a numerous lifespan factors and environments.

A person's health is an ever-changing state of being resulting from the interaction with the environment. Optimum health is the actualization of both innate and obtained human potential gained through rewarding relationships with others, obtaining goals and maintaining expert personal care. Adaptations can be made as required to maintain stability and structural integrity. A person's state of health can vary from wellness to illness, disease, or dysfunction. Professional nursing is founded on the need to promote wellness practices, the attentive treatment of persons who are acutely or chronically ill or dying, and restorative care of patients during convalescence and rehabilitation. It also includes the education and measurement of those who perform or are learning to perform nursing responsibilities, the support and communication of research to enhance knowledge and practice, and the management of nursing in healthcare delivery systems. Nursing practice centers on the application of a body of knowledge in order to maintain, restore, or enhance the interactions between people and their environment. Overall, therefore, Fitzpatrick notes that transition is one of the most important issues of nursing theory. It comes from and is related to the basic metaparadigm concepts of person, environment, health and nursing (Davidson, 2002).