Nursing Science Quarterly

Forty retrievable studies are reviewed, covering the period of 1988 to 2003, that were based on Watson’s theory of caring. The author provides an overview of the studies, identifies measurement instruments developed, critiques the body of work, and offers suggestions for future research.

The obligation to act faithfully poses ethical issues as nurses live nursing from day to day. In this column, the ethics of acting faithfully is explored in relation to four scenarios drawn from different realms of professional nursing. The scenarios illustrate ethical issues that may arise when attempting to uphold personal integrity and fulfill one’s duty to act faithfully. The theoretical context of this discussion is the human becoming school of thought.

Teaching-learning is a never-ending journey of giving-receiving in coming-to-know. The purposes of this column are to distinguish among the traditional and human becoming paradigms of teaching-learning, and to set forth the essences, paradoxes, and processes of a human becoming teaching-learning model.

Nurse educators have the opportunity to encourage meaningful reflections of nursing students. Dr. Rosemarie Rizzo Parse's teaching-learning processes provide a framework for such experiences. Student reflection through journaling and student participation in dialogue using these processes brings about an opportunity for students to discover new meaning for themselves and others. The process of how two nurse educators incorporated the human becoming teaching-learning model into students' experiences is discussed. Excerpts of student journals, themes of student work, and considerations for future development of the teaching-learning model with students are discussed.

Appreciation of the personhood of people with dementia calls for care that looks beyond the disease to the person within. In this column the author discusses the concept of personhood for people with dementia and presents a method of teaching person-centered care developed within the theoretical framework of nursing as caring. The study of an aesthetic expression of a nursing situation, written by a nurse who cares for people with Alzheimer’s disease in a nursing home, is presented to assist nurses to learn to see beyond the disease to the person and to develop relationships that nurture personhood.

This column focuses on exploration of the international applicability of conceptual models of nursing developed by nurse theorists from the United States of America. Nurse scholars from the United States and Holland discuss their experiences with the international use of the Neuman systems model.

Nursing is variously described as a profession, a discipline, an occupation. The meanings we assign to such words and the expectations, demands, and responsibilities that each reveals to and/or exacts from those of us privileged to call ourselves registered nurse provides a splendid arena for viewing the struggle of nursing as an intellectual endeavor embedded in its own distinctive knowledge base, experiences, purposes, and values. Currently, pressure exerted within and without nursing to adopt the self-limiting potential and subordinated position that a professional discipline orientation and applied degree education confer on nursing is mounting. This article examines the relationships among historical events, contemporary influences, and confounding definitions that are integral to how we choose to guide and shape the evolution of nursing scholarship, practice, and education. The authors contend that the full significance of these relationships must be appreciated if nursing is to advance as a scholarly academic discipline and practice profession.

The purpose of this study was to answer the research question, What is the structure of the lived experience of feeling cared for? The participants were 10 women volunteers who were struggling with lack of economic, social, or interpersonal resources and who were or had been homeless. The Parse research method, a phenomenological-hermeneutic method, was used to discover the meaning of feeling cared for. The major finding of this study is the structure: Feeling cared for is contentment with intimate affiliations arising with salutary endeavors, while honoring uniqueness amid adversity. The structure provides knowledge about feeling cared for and its connection to health and quality of life. Feeling cared for is discussed in relation to the principles and concepts of human becoming and in relation to how it can inform nursing practice and future research.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of perceived field motion and human field rhythms to perceived health status, health conception, and well-being in early adolescents to determine which health-related variables are most compatible with Rogers’science of unitary human beings. The sample of 142 early adolescents responded to the study instruments in classrooms. The correlations between perceived field motion and each of the other variables were statistically significant, and increased in magnitude from perceived health status to health conception to well-being. These results give credence to Rogers’evolving philosophical belief that the term wellbeing is more compatible than health in her science.

Merton postulated that to significantly advance disciplinary knowledge, scholarship must include the development of middle-range theories that derive hypotheses, can be empirically investigated, and are linked to extant theories. The purpose of this paper is to present the strategies used to develop a middle-range nursing theory of adaptation to chronic pain based on Merton’s description. Analysis and synthesis of the theoretical and research literature provided the foundational, theory-building strategies used to develop the adaptation to chronic pain model. Theoretical substruction was then used to deduce the adaptation to chronic pain model from Roy’s adaptation model.

The purpose of this investigation was to explore when nursing becomes an art, and to develop a theory/model of nursing as art. The overall design of the investigation was qualitative, and phenomenological-hermeneutic. The five substantial categories in the theory/model are: Invitation and confirmation, encounter, values, moral attitude and demeanor, the act of good will, and aesthetic communication. One main finding of this nursing investigation based on the caring perspective was that values and a thoroughly moral attitude and demeanor are central when nursing becomes an art.