The nursing profession began as a career mainly for spiritual leaders and men. Sickness was believed to be a result of an evil attack or an attack from the devil. Until the Crimean war, actual nursing started to treat soldiers who had been injured during the war. Florence Nightingale was the one who started this new profession together with her team of nurses. They devoted their time to treat the wounded soldiers of the British military. The kind of nursing offered did not consider hygiene matters, but nurses became aware that unsanitary conditions posed significant risks to patients' health with time. According to Peres et al. (2020) , this discovery enabled Florence Nightingale to advocate for better nursing changes. The better conditions were hand hygiene, adequate hydration, sanitation and nutrition as part of health and hygiene protocols. The implementation of these protocols saw a significant decrease in patient’s mortality. Therefore, through Florence Nightingale’s investigation and research, she formed the basic nursing foundation in maintaining quality care and safe practices.
Mildred Montag is another noticeable leader in the nursing profession who established the Associate Degree in Nursing program. The program’s goal was to address nurse shortages that offered training and certified individuals to grow in nursing experience in the United States. The American Red Cross was established by Clara Barton, another organization that improved people's life quality facing challenges in war and non-war situations. The first African American nurse called Mary Mahoney brought about cultural awareness in nursing professions and called for the need to respect all patients irrespective of their backgrounds (Mackey & Bassendowski, 2018).
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The establishment of most Nursing theories was during the 1960s. Like Florence Nightingale on hygiene and sanitization protocols, one of those most significant theories contributed to establishing the coxcomb diagram, which shows mortality decrease from her findings ( Fennelly et al., 2020 ). These theories were incorporated as part of nursing education necessary for nursing care. These early theories have evolved to what we call evidence-based practice built from previously collected and analyzed data. The ideas have facilitated the focus on patient influence and dynamic in nursing care. Examples of significant nursing theories are; the theory of Coping, Adaption and Stress by Richard Lazarus and the self-care deficit theory by Dorothy Orem.
References
Fennelly, O., Desmeules, F., O'Sullivan, C., Heneghan, N., & Cunningham, C. (2020). Advanced musculoskeletal physiotherapy practice: Informing education curricula. Musculoskeletal Science and Practice , 102174.
Mackey, A., & Bassendowski, S. (2018). The History of Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing Education and Practice. Journal of Professional Nursing , 33 (1), 51–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2016.05.009
Peres, M. A. D. A., Paim, L., & Brandão, M. A. G. (2020). Professional autonomy as centrality in best practices in nursing. Revista brasileira de enfermagem , 73 (2).
