Opinion Section
In my nursing profession, I aim to establish and nature a personal philosophy that will be founded on the attainment of personal and patient satisfaction. Nursing is, arguably among the most frustrating and distressing careers due to frequent contact with patients who possess extreme levels of pain, anger, frustration, hopelessness, and despair. As such, it becomes common to have a nursing experience that satisfies patients but leaves a traumatized nurse. The experience may also dissatisfy a patient thus frustrating a nurse. My professional objective, is, therefore, to establish a working model that aims to attain satisfaction and contentment in both parties. I will achieve this by establishing a caring relationship with elements of love, kindness, hope, trust, and patient education.
My nursing goals have partly been fueled by my personal experiences through encounters with terminal patients. Terminal patients and their close family members are often hopeless as they wait for the expiry time. I, however, learned that giving a love-caring experience enables them to lead a dignified life with the utmost trust in the services they receive. After the expiry of such patients, the pre-established relationship developed with close family members provides them with an assurance that their kin got the best possible services and protection. I learned that such assurance can be maximized by offering my physical presence and mental companionship to family members. Jean Watson and Katie Eriksson are among the numerous individuals that have influenced my perception of nursing. I subscribe to their emphasis on the development of a relationship between caregivers and their patients. This relationship goes beyond physical healing but also caters for mental and spiritual health. Several personal values have influenced my views on the nursing profession. An example is my recognition of human dignity that ought to be upheld on others and self. This enables me to treat others with respect while still upholding high self-esteem. I also strive to always be imaginative, creative and artistic in my quest to seek solutions and administer care to my patients.
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Scholarly Section
Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring
The nursing profession continues to attract an increasing number of entrants. Factors contributing to the increase in new entrants include monetary benefits from the income generated and influences from prominent nurses or adored family members and friends. Compassion is, however, the main trait that should pull anyone into this field since caring is the core purpose of nursing. In her philosophy, Philosophy and Theory of Transpersonal Caring, Watson's main concern are on initial caring patients get form nurses and its aim towards prevention of disease, restoration of health and promotion of wellness. She asserts that without transpersonal caring, curing of diseases is attainable but ailments would persist. She attributes this to the ability to care to empower patients with knowledge which enables them to control their health thus promoting wellness (Watson, 2012).
Watson notes seven assumptions that must be constant in the application of her model on human caring. The first assumption she makes is that caring can only be successfully implemented through interpersonal relationships. The second assumption is that caring has carative components whose endpoint must be the satisfaction of a patients’ needs. She also assumes that efficacious caring improves health and should be offered in a way that accepts patients’ current and future conditions. Watson also presumes that a caring environment is that which allows patients to have the ultimate choice of prioritizing their needs. Additionally, she supposes that caring and curing are intertwined thus making caring practices the core of the nursing profession (Watson, 2012).
According to Watson, society, human beings, health, and nursing form the major concepts in caring. Society is key as it dictates the norms and goals of its individuals. Events that demonstrate caring have existed in society among different persons. It's, arguably, that a caring personality is not genetically transmitted but is passed down to different generations as a culture within a society. She defines humans as being functionally integrated beings with greatness beyond the functioning of their body parts. They, therefore, need caring, nurturing, respect, and assistance. Her definition of health as a concept of nursing goes beyond physical and mental wellness. She includes soul, social functioning, and illness prevention activities as being part of healthiness. In Watson’s philosophy, nursing is a human science between professions and persons with an illness that involves personal, aesthetic and ethical caring interventions (Watson, 2012).
Caring, as described in her philosophy, is a combination of a nurse and patient’s actions and choices. The moment presents the two parties with equal opportunities in decision making regarding their needs and actions. This gives forth to what she calls a transpersonal caring concept where both the nurse and the patient are affected and feel each other’s presence and essence in a mutual experience that becomes part of their life (Watson, 2012).
To elaborate on her philosophy, Watson came up with ten factors that she felt were critical in the administration of human caring. The factors have to be jointly addressed by the patient and the nurse during a caring session. The factors are linked to their possible clinical caritas process thus giving full insight into their applicability. Her initial three factors are the core of her philosophical beliefs. They are humanistic-altruistic values, faith-hope installation and interpersonal sensitivity. Altruistic values are depicted by a show of selflessness and generosity and include actions that show love, kindness, and equality. The factor of instillation of faith and hope demands that the nurse develops and sustains the patient’s belief in self and those taking up the caring roles. Sensitivity involves the cultivation of transpersonal spiritual practices that go beyond a personal ego (Watson, 2012).
The other seven factors of Watson’s philosophy are a derivative of the first three factors. They include the development of helping trust among patients, acceptance of feelings by both parties, and the use of a creative process of solving problems while providing care. In the development of trust, Watson believes in a caring process that increases confidence among patients on their relationship with caregivers. The factor of acceptance of feelings prepares patients' strength in accommodating both negative and positive outcomes of their condition. To achieve this factor, the caregiver has to be physically present and emotionally supportive to patients. Creative problem solving demands a caring engagement of an artistic approach. Artistry involves the application of ethics, critical thinking, imagination and expression of feelings (Watson, 2012).
In other factors, Watson elaborates on the need for transpersonal teaching and learning. This factor advocates for a genuine engagement of the sharing of information between caregivers and patients. A genuine teaching and learning process will enable both parties to understand and stay in each other’s frame of reference. The next factor is the provision of an environment that supports, protects and corrects patients' physical, mental and spiritual health. The gratification of needs is also among Watson's factors that require caring to involve assistance with the basic needs and essentials. Lastly is the factor of allowance of existential-phenomenological spiritual forces. This involves attending to the soul needs of the self and the patient (Watson, 2012).
Watson concludes her philosophy by elaborating on her hierarchy of needs. At the bottom of her pyramid of needs is the survival need. This comprises a patient’s need for food, fluid, ventilation, and elimination. Next up the hierarchy are functional needs which include the need for physical activity or need for inactivity as well as sexuality. Above the functional needs are integrative needs. This is the stage where achievement and affiliations are sought. On top of her hierarchy of needs is the growth-seeking stage, where a person seeks self-actualization (Watson, 2012).
Watson’s Theory and the Nursing Practice
The application of Watson’s theory is demonstrated by actualizing her caring language. It entails the practice of loving-kindness, helping-trusting, caring-feeling, and teaching-learning experiences. This implies that nurses engage their emotions in their caring relationships with patients. Numerous healthcare facilities have adopted Watson’s theory into their institutional philosophies. Adoption of Watson's caring language in hospitals often faces challenges for lack of implementation mechanisms in existing documentation systems. Successful adoptions have involved the development of new charting platforms during system upgrades (Rosenberg, 2006, p. 53).
Similar to the scientific research process, Watson's theory also advocates for the assessment, planning, intervention and evaluation stages of nursing. In the assessment stage, caregivers make physical observations and identification of their clients’ problems. The problem is then reviewed and a hypothesis of the problem and its solution is formed. After the hypothesis, a caring plan is outlined. The plan stipulates parameters to be monitored and the data to be collected. The intervention stage involves the execution of the plan and collection of the required raw data. The final stage of evaluation involves data analysis and interpretation of the results. This may confirm the initial hypothesis created or may lead to the formation of a new hypothesis based on the interpretation of the data collected.
Watson’s Theory and the Nursing Education
Caring is a global need that is practiced among different professionals and cultures. As Watson suggests, a caring character is founded more in society than it is inherited genetically by offspring. Professionals in the field of nursing face frustrating and depressing challenges while taking care of patients. To cope with these encounters, nurses need to be equipped with a deeply founded culture of caring that should be introduced to them as part of their curriculum. Educators have, however, encountered challenges in teaching deep concepts of caring as a fundamental part of nursing. Watson’s theoretical framework of caring offers reprieve as a potential model in understanding and teaching the concept of caring. With an emphasis on interpersonal and transpersonal processes of administering care, the model offers a theoretical foundation of assimilating caring within nursing education (Wright & Hanson, 2016, p. 281).
Watson’s Theory and Nursing Research
The quality of a healthcare process is majorly a measure of patients’ satisfaction rather than the outcome of patients’ ailments. Satisfaction in patients is a factor that majorly depends on their nursing experiences while receiving treatment and care. Patients’ satisfaction is also related to patient safety which involves their perceptions of the treatment offered, regimens and recommendations given. Caring is, therefore, a precursor of safety that is felt through interpersonal contact between nurses and patients. This was evident in Pajnkihar, Stiglic, and Vrbnjak's (2017) study on levels of education, carative factors, and patient satisfaction.
Pajnkihar, Stiglic, and Vrbnjak's (2017) research study starts by exploring links between levels of education and perception of Watson’s carative factors. Results from a filled validated questionnaire presented to nurses and nurse assistants indicate the presence of a relationship between the level of education and sensibility to Watson’s carative factors. Nursing professionals with a higher level of education believe more in the carative factors than nurses with a low level of education. Higher levels of positive perception were also due to the inclusion of Watson’s theory in the nursing curriculum of the institutions attended by the interviewed nurses. On patient satisfaction, levels of contentment were higher in patients attended to by nurses and assistants who had a higher belief in caritas factors. However, a separate examination of all caritas factors indicated that sensibility, problem solving, and spirituality had the least impact on patient satisfaction (Pajnkihar, Stiglic, & Vrbnjak, 2017).
References
Pajnkihar, M., Štiglic, G., & Vrbnjak, D. (2017). The concept of Watson’s carative factors in nursing and their (dis)harmony with patient satisfaction. PeerJ , 5 , e2940. doi:10.7717/peerj.2940
Rosenberg, S. (2006). Utilizing the language of Jean Watson's caring theory within a computerized clinical documentation system. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing , 24 (1), 53-56. doi:10.1097/00024665-200601000-00013
Watson, J. (2012). New dimensions of human caring theory. Caring in Nursing Classics . doi:10.1891/9780826171122.0010
Wright, P. M., & Hanson, M. J. (2016). Interprofessional graduate students’ perspectives on caring for vulnerable populations. Nursing Education Perspectives , 37 (5), 281-282. doi:10.1097/01.nep.0000000000000036
