Reflective Analysis Case Report Component Paper

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The field of nursing has undergone tremendous changes over the last couple of decades. Since Florence Nightingale proposed her famous theories, the nursing profession has become more evidence-based and theoretically oriented. As such, the profession expects practicing nurses to have their individual views regarding how they should practice nursing. At the center of the personal philosophy of nursing espoused by nurses exists a theoretical underpinning that they practice. Importantly though, the definition of the environment and an individual within the care setting plays an important role in the determination of the above. Therefore, the present paper will examine the central philosophy of care of the author by reflecting on the core elements of their personal philosophy of nursing.

Central Belief about the Individual Person

            Florence Nightingale introduced her theories, which have influenced the nursing profession tremendously. She suggested the use of interpersonal tools such as advocacy to enhance patient caregiving. As such, as a practicing nurse, I view individual patients as having likeness to God. The fact that they are the images of the Almighty God behooves us to treat them fairly and equally during care. In other words, I believe that an individual person deserves to be treated the same way you would like to be treated. This phenomena aligns with the instructions from the Bible that we need to love our neighbors as we love ourselves since they were wonderfully and fearfully made in the image of God. Thus, the fact that they are sick does not negate their likeness to God and neither does it prevent us from treating them with respect, compassion, and ensuring their safety at the workplace. Therefore, an individual person, even if they are sick and do not have money, deserve to be accorded the necessary care.

Moreover, through her grounded theory, Florence Nightingale calls for enhanced social relationships and human interactions between patients and nurses. The evolution of patient advocacy has improved over the last couple of years and the patient-nurse bonding has evolved into a central standard of practice in the contemporary healthcare (Davoodvand, Abbaszadeh, & Ahmadi, 2016).  Being cognizant of this, I ensure that I create a healthy patient-nurse bonding to ensure that they receive the best of care from me in a manner similar to how God would want them to be treated. By doing this, I will also recognize and understand an individual patient’s hopes, expectations and experiences within the continuum of care.

Personal Worldview

            Varied nurses have multifarious worldviews that influence their practices. As an individual, my worldview is that we are each created uniquely in the image of God and as such, their treatment should reflect it by holistically looking at care. Thus, as a practicing nurse, it becomes pertinent that I treat every patient at all levels including the physical, emotional and physical realms. This worldview has influenced me to adopt Watson’s Theory of Human Caring in practice. Using Watson’s Theory of Human Caring, I always employ a holistic perspective when caring for patients. Indeed, during practice, I always employ Watson’s carative factors, whch are foundational to his theory, juxtaposed with the existing reductionist, biophysical model at the time of care (Pajnkihar, McKenna, Štiglic, & Vrbnjak, 2017). By incorporating the carative factors, I not only perform tasks when treating a patient but also offer professional nursing care.

Further, the theory also influences my approach to patients in several ways. As mentioned before, the nurse-patient bond has undergone remarkable change over the last couple of decades. During my provision of care, I offer supportive, corrective, and protective spiritual, societal, mental, and physical environment. Additionally, I also ensure that I promote transpersonal teaching-learning during care to ensure that a patient becomes autonomous during their stay at the hospital (Labrague et al., 2017). Also, I consider the spiritual aspect of care as very fundamental to healing. Thus, I make certain that I allow for the spiritual-existential-phenomenological forces. By employing these carative factors, I ensure that my patients are treated the way God would like them to be treated in a holistic manner.

The Environment

            As a nurse practitioner, the environment plays an important role in care. According to Nightingale, the environmental determinants of health are pervasive and pertinent to the diagnosis, assessment, evaluation, planning, intervention, and diagnosis of the components of the practice of nursing. During care, various environmental components that affect care play an important role. Whereas some illnesses do not have environmental etiology, these factors are still pertinent. The environmental factors of health fall within certain four widely acknowledged classes inclusive of psychosocial, biological, physical and chemical components. Thus, according to Roque and Carraro (2015), nurses have an important role in controlling environmental factors such as water and air quality, food, sanitation, cleanliness, pesticides, waste products, and chemicals. Thus, according to Nightingale, nurses need to ensure that the air within is as pure as the air without during the provision of care.

The Individual and the Environment

            During the practice of nursing, it becomes difficult to ignore the interaction between the environment and the health of an individual. The environmental hazards mentioned above may occur naturally like ultraviolet light or radon, or manmade hazards such as gases and particulates that are released into the environment. The individual may thus be exposed to these environmental hazards at home, community, and work environments. After the interaction, adverse health outcomes that are related to the environment may entail childhood and worker lead poisoning, occupationally induced and childhood asthma, as well as repetitive motion injury (Lyckhage, Brink, & Lindahl, 2018). Thus, the interaction between an individual and the environment leads to the existence of health conditions, which is why a nurse practitioner should ensure that the environment is clean.

View of Health

            The view of health are varied depending on various studies.  However, my personal view of health aligns with the definition offered by the World Health Organization that health is not merely the absence of a disease condition (Rinn, 2018). On the contrary, I believe that in addition to the above, health is also a state of complete mental, social, and physical wellbeing. Indeed, I believe that health espouses the capacity of an individual to adapt and then manage their physical, social, and mental challenges throughout their lifetime. Therefore, whereas the absence of disease is an important aspect of health, managing them ensures that health becomes a holistic affair.

Illness and Health

            Health and illness have a certain level of consonance from empirical studies. As mentioned, health denotes a complete wellbeing of the social, mental, and physical aspects of an individual. However, the concept of illness denotes an improper functioning of the above aspects and consequently deviation from normality (Rovesti et al., 2018). Hence, the absence of the concepts of health as encompassed in the definition leads to the existence of illness. Whereas illness may not be as clear cut, the existence of the two phenomena discussed here leads to its presence in an individual.

Central Reason for the Existence of Nursing

            Nursing professes caring as a central tenet of its practice. Various stakeholders in the nursing profession have supported the centrality of caring Jean Watson and Leininger developed theories that supported the primacy of caring in nursing (Cook & Peden, 2017). The aspect of caring as the central tenet of nursing also receives backing from the American Nurses Association, who posited that the provision of caring is an essential element of nursing, since it facilitates healing and health.

Conclusion

Therefore, one’s personal philosophy of nursing is important as it influences the quality if care offered by a practice nurse. Using Watson’s Theory of Human Caring, I believe that holistic care offered to a patient is important as it addresses all the aspects of an individual beyond the traditional treatment. This is in line with the caring as the central tenet of nursing as postulated by various theorists and nursing agencies.

References

Cook, L. B., & Peden, A. (2017). Finding a focus for nursing: The caring concept. Advances in Nursing Science, 40(1), 12-23.

Davoodvand, S., Abbaszadeh, A., & Ahmadi, F. (2016). Patient advocacy from the clinical nurses’ viewpoint: a qualitative study. Journal of medical ethics and history of medicine, 9, 5.

Labrague, L. J., McEnroe‐Petitte, D. M., Papathanasiou, I. V., Edet, O. B., Arulappan, J., & Tsaras, K. (2017). Nursing students’ perceptions of their own caring behaviors: a multicountry study. International journal of nursing knowledge, 28(4), 225-232.

Lyckhage, E. D., Brink, E., & Lindahl, B. (2018). A Theoretical Framework for Emancipatory Nursing With a Focus on Environment and Persons’ Own and Shared Lifeworld. Advances in Nursing Science, 41(4), 340-350.

Pajnkihar, M., McKenna, H. P., Štiglic, G., & Vrbnjak, D. (2017). Fit for practice: Analysis and evaluation of Watson’s theory of human caring. Nursing science quarterly, 30(3), 243-252.

Rinn, M. P. (2018). Environmental health, the patient’s point of view and expectations. Soins; la revue de reference infirmiere, 63(823), 34-35.

Roque, A. T. F., & Carraro, T. E. (2015). Perceptions about the hospital environment from the perspective of high-risk puerperal women based on Florence Nightingale’s theory. Revista gaucha de enfermagem, 36(4), 63-69.

Rovesti, M., Fioranelli, M., Petrelli, P., Satolli, F., Roccia, M. G., Gianfaldoni, S., … Lotti, T. (2018). Health and Illness in History, Science and Society. Open access Macedonian journal of medical sciences, 6(1), 163–165. doi:10.3889/oamjms.2018.056