Caring is the essence of nursing. As a nurse, we establish a caring relationship with our patients, and provide the best individualize care and interventions to promote healing. Jean Watson’s focus of practice is the patient and the theory places the patient in the context of the family, the community and the culture. The major concepts of Jean Watson’s theory of caring are transpersonal caring relationships, caring moments/caring occasions and the ten caritas processes. I will describe how this theory can be applied in practice and show an example from my own practice.
Jean Watson’s theory of transpersonal caring defines the outcome of nursing activity in regard to the humanistic aspects of life. This theory involves the philosophy and science of caring. Watson’s model is based around the caring process, assisting patients in maintaining health or in dying peacefully. “Care can be considered simply an ethical task and thus a burden of one more thing to do, or it can be considered a commitment to attending to and becoming enthusiastically involved in the patient’s needs” (Applying the Ethics of Care to your Nursing Practice, page 116). In this model, nurses need to be knowledgeable about human behavior and responses to health problems, individual needs, how to respond to others, and the strengths and limitations of the patient and family. The nurse also comforts and offers compassion, and empathy to the patient and family.
There are many concepts in Jean Watson’s Theory of caring. The three major concepts that will be discussed are: transpersonal caring relationship, caring occasion/caring moment and the ten caritas processes. Transpersonal caring relationship is defined as the foundation of work. It is a moral com...
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...d I told her that I am Catholic. Before I called her family to sit with her, she asked me to pray with her so I did. I sat down, held her hand and prayed with her. She also asked a favor, to tell the other nurses to refer to her baby as a her baby not a fetus. It is probably one my most memorable caring moments. As for the ten caritas processes, not only we can utilize this process into use when delivering health care to the patients but also apply this process to our families and loved ones. In order for nurses to deliver the best care to patients, we need to start from within by utilizing this process into our lives.
In conclusion, Jean Watson’s theory represents that caring is the essence of nursing. The theory provides many useful concepts for the practice of nursing which gives guidance to apply them in practice, research and everyday life experiences.
In conclusion, Jean Watson’s theory of caring, a middle-range theory, provides essential framework and guidelines in nursing shortage problem. Nurses who exposed to caring theory have moral and ethical obligations to care for others during challenging situations. Patients, families and other professionals depend on nursing profession, their expertise and knowledge for best patient
Watson, J. (2001). Jean Watson: Theory of human caring. In M.E. Parker (Ed.), Nursing theories and nursing practice (pp. 343-354). Philadelphia: Davis.
Among the many nursing theories, Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring is unique in that she defines nursing as a healing art and science which endeavors to approximate the technical aspects of nursing with the metaphysical and spiritual dimensions. According to Watson, the caring moment is a main component of her theory that can be created during the phenomenal interaction between the patient and the nurse. Watson developed her theory identifying classification of interventions or 'carative factors', which according to her constitute the essentials of nursing when all the techniques and technologies are removed. These ‘carative factors’ originated from Watson's efforts to solve some conceptual and empirical problems about nursing,
Watson conceived her Theory of Human Caring while she was teaching at the University of Colorado in 1975 to 1979 (Conway et al, 2011). It evolved from her personal views on nursing and merged with her learning and experience from her doctoral studies in education, clinical and social psychology. With the publication of her first book, Jean Watson developed the initial ideas of her theory and came up with 10 “carative” factors. Her actual theory was published in 1985, after which she further developed the corresponding nursing curriculum. In those years, Watson also extensively traveled in Asia and Australia while practiced. The prevailing influences in the nursing field at the time were those of Carl Rogers, Florence Nightingale and Leininger. Main psy...
Watson first published her theory of caring in 1979 in a book titled, Nursing: Human Science and Caring. Watson and other researchers have built upon this theory and caring theory should continually be evolving as the delivery of patient care evolves. This theory focuses on care between the nurse and the patient. This interaction is defined as setting mutual tasks, how a spiritual force may help the interaction and when caring in the moment of true healing may occur. When the nurse and patient are on the same level spiritually self-awareness and self-discovery occur. There are ten themes identified in this article essential to caring in
The caring theory that I chose to discuss this week is Joanne Duffy’s quality-caring model. Dr. Duff’s developed the model in 2003 because she noticed that nurses did not seem to care. Formulizing the model tends to improve the care in nursing and to guide nurses to practice.
Jean Watson’s theory was first published in 1979. Later Watson explained that this work was an attempt to solve some conceptual and empirical problems, with no intention to create a theory. This theory was expanded and formalized in her next book in 1985. Since then, Watson continued to refine her ideas through various publications. At his time, the major conceptual elements of the theory are ten Clinical Caritas Processes (originally Carative factors), Transpersonal Caring Relationship, Caring Moment/Occasion and Caring Consciousness. According to Watson’s theory, the human care process is performed through a Transpersonal Caring Relationship guided by the Carative factors, which are based on humanistic – altruistic value system.
Both theories use communication as the backbone to their theories and in developing an environment conducive to promote healing. Although communication is the framework for both theories, types of communication is looked at different in each theory. In Watson’s theory, she that communication is a spiritual occurrence. The focus is on nonverbal as well as verbal expressions. She also involves personal experiences and growth, art, religious practices. Watson uses the concept of care as the center of nursing care. The goal of the Human Care Theory is for the patient and nurse to gain a higher degree of harmony within themselves, cultivating a wholeness of mind/body/spirit (Watson Caring Science Institute, 2010, p.
Sitzman, K., & Watson, J. (2014). Caring science, mindful practice: Implementing Watson's Human Caring Theory. New York: Springer Publishing Company LLC.
A study by Norman, Rutledge, Keefer-Lynch and Albeg (2008b) shows that among nurses in the clinical setting, the fourth caritas process was used almost a majority of the time despite what the circumstance may be. One of the ideas they use to incorporate this process in their nursing care is emphasizing the importance of following through on actions and to report to the patient as quick as possible. This is crucial to sustaining the trust of the patient and keeping that relationship strong. Some other examples of implementing this caritas process include not appearing that you are too busy or mentally occupied when caring for the patient and to steer away from confronting too harshly patient ideas or behaviors (Norman et al., 2008, p. 327). These examples tie in with focusing on the present with the patient and assuring them they aren 't bothersome. A focus should be placed on talking through situations and never discouraging the patient through harsh
Watson’s Theory of Transpersonal Caring is considered a philosophy; therefore, it is very broad and general in scope. Included in the theory are ten caritas the nurse should practice promoting a meaningful nurse-patient relationship (Sitzman & Wright Eichelberger, 2017).
I always treat each person as a unique individual with unique life experiences. I treat my patients with respect and address their cultural beliefs and values. I pride myself with having a caring attitude and want to help and heal people from their illness physically and psychologically. I think nursing can be both science and art. I think to be a successful nurse; the nurse needs to master the art of caring and continually learn and apply knowledge of nursing science throughout their career. Without caring or nurturing the nurse cannot connect with the patient and trust will not develop, without a trusting relationship, therapeutic nursing will not be able to occur. Therefore, I feel caring is at the forefront of all successful nursing interactions. This is not to negate the value that science brings to nursing. A competent nurse must be able to have a variety of knowledge and skill. The next part of the paper will discuss the metaparadigm of
Jean Watson is a well-respected American nursing theorist who created the Theory on Human Caring. Watson’s concept on caring for a human being is simple, yet has much depth and meaning, and holds strong for nurses to work with compassion, wisdom, love, and caring. The Theory on Human Caring is necessary for every nurse, as it is our job to care for others in a genuine and sensitive way. The theory is extensive; its core foundation is based on nine concepts all interrelated and primarily focused on a nurse giving a patient care with compassion, wisdom, love, and caring (Watson, J., 1999). The nine essential aspects consist of: values, faith-hope, sensitivity, trust, feelings, decision-making, teaching-learning, environment, and human needs. Watson also created the Caritas Process consists of ten different ways of giving care:
She proposed that caring and love are universal and mysterious (Wagner, 2010). Watson believes that health professionals make moral, social, and scientific contributions to humanity and that a nurses' caring ideal can affect human development (Wagner, 2010). Watson believes that it is imperative in today's society to maintain a caring ideology in practice (Wagner, 2010). Caring is a concept that focuses on having a respectful, non-judgmental, supportive attitude that contributes to the healing process. Watson's theory, in relationship to the metaparadigm of nursing, focuses on the relationship between the nurse and the patient (Wagner, 2010). According to Watson's theory, the nurse and patient form a caring relationship where both the patient and the nurse promote healing (Wagner, 2010). In general, the theory of caring reminds us that a nurse can have a great impact on the life of a patient. If I were to add a new conceptual metaparadigm, it would be the concept of caring since I firmly believe that without caring it will be almost impossible to have wellness at all. If I were to choose one metaparadigm concept to eliminate, I would opt to remove the concept of health since I think that in the concepts of caring and nursing the individual's health should be fully
When a nurse is providing patient care, he/she creates a safe environment for the patient and enables the choice to establish a relationship on a human to human interaction or on a transpersonal level. The patient will be acknowledged as a person with the wholeness of their soul despite their illness or number on the bed. The ten carative factors in this theory are used as an education tool for nurses around the world and should be applied to the different care situations in practice. Nurses use the factors to promote growth in themselves and within the patient. A nurse should respect the patient’s decisions and take the time to fully be present in the moments with the patient. A lot of nurses complain about the time limitations they have and do not provide the necessary amount of time to listen and gather the patient’s perspective of the situation. Another way this theory can be applied to practice is by recognizing the caring moment between you and the patient. This will determine how the relationship will