Jean Watsons theory of caring Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Jean Watsons theory of caring - Essay Example This paper talks on Jane Watson's theory of nursing. Her theory is based on the belief that a caring attitude among the nurses for their patients is an essential part of getting well. Moreover, a real and heart-felt caring attitude develops from a humanistic personal value system that comes from a liberal arts background in college. She calls this caring attitude as composed of â€Å"carative† factors (from the word care) and is encapsulated in her seven major assumptions as contained in her theory of nursing. Furthermore, she elaborated on this theory in her ten â€Å"carative† factors that should serve as a guide in today's complex world of nursing. The major point of her theory is to re-emphasize the caring factors which are somehow lost in the current focus on technological and technical factors in medicine and nursing care. People seem to have forgotten how crucial caring is because of the rapid commercialization of the health care industry. Patients are now viewed or termed as clients and no different from a regular sales transaction in which the health care nurse or any medical professional is the seller and the patient is the customer. Jane Watson's theory has great significance today in view of emphasis that patients should be treated first and foremost as human beings who have feelings which can either send them back to either good or ill health depending on the attitude exhibited by their nurses. Profound changes in the medical and scientific technologies should not diminish the patient as a person. Keywords: altruism, carative, caring, humanistic, nursing, personal, theory, values Introduction Nursing today is a recognized profession and forms a crucial part of the health care team. Nurses have their own code of ethics to guide them through the challenges and ethical issues that they often encounter in their practice. It has gone a very long way since the days of Ms. Florence Nightingale whose original philosophy was limited to caring of the wounded and the sick as she had witnessed during a war. Nursing has since expanded to many specialties such that nurses are to be trained academically as well as acquire practical skills through learning by experience. The big part of nursing practice is anchored on certain theories about proper care in all aspects of the human life. Nursing has since expanded to include important components in human life: ranging from the conception of life itself, the entire birth-death cycle, personal relationships, good health, healing, pain, suffering, loss, grieving and caring (Watson, 2008, p. 2). Nursing practice is based on a number of competing theories about caring for the sick and how to promote good health in general. It has evolved since and is still evolving even today. This paper discusses Jean Watson's own theory of nursing as opposed to the other nursing theories in current practice. Nursing as a distinct profession has its unique focus for knowledge acquisition and developm ent through the totality of its philosophy, research, theories and practical wisdom. The knowledge so acquired is used to guide actual nursing practice but obviously, this can also change from time to time depending on which nursing theory seems plausible and workable. The theories of Jean Watson are remarkable in one respect which is to bring back humanity to a side of nursing which had been criticized in some quarters of society as being too cold and clinical for forgetting that patients are people who have feelings that can get hurt if not handled well. Discussion Background of Theory – Jean Watson had a doctorate degree in nursing and so was able to develop her theory based on extensive knowledge together with equally impressive working experiences. She has both undergraduate and graduate degrees in nursing and psychiatric health nursing as well as another doctorate degree