Definition of Nursing

Nursing is an art and a science.

Earlier emphasis was on the care of sick patient; now the promotion of health is stressed.
American Nurses Association definition, 1980: Nursing is the diagnosis and treatment of human responses to
actual and potential health problems.
Roles of Nursing
Whether in hospital-based or community health care setting, nurses assume three basic roles:
Practitioner- involves actions that directly meet the health care and nursing needs of patients, families, and
significant others; includes staff nurses at all levels of the clinical ladder, advanced practice nurses, and community-
based nurses.
Leader- involves actions such as deciding, relating, influencing, and facilitating that affect the actions of others and
are directed toward goal determination and achievement; may be a formal nursing leadership role or an informal
role periodically assumed by the nurse.
Researcher- involves actions taken to implement studies to determine the actual effects of nursing care to further
the scientific base of nursing; can include all nurses, not just academicians, nurse scientists, and graduate nursing
students.
History of Nursing
1. The first nurses were trained by religious institutions to care for patients; no standards or educational basis.
2. In 1873, Florence Nightingale developed a model for independent nursing schools to teach critical thinking,
attention to the patient's individual needs, and respect for the patient's rights.
3. During the early 1900s, hospitals used nursing students as cheap labor and most graduate nurses were
privately employed to provide care in the home.
4. After World War II, technological advancements brought more skilled and specialized care to hospitals,
requiring more experienced nurses.
5. Development of intensive and coronary care units during the 1950s brought forth specialty nursing and
advanced practice nurses.
6. Since the 1960s, greater interest in health promotion and disease prevention along with a shortage of
physicians serving rural areas, helped create the role of the nurse practitioner.
Theories of Nursing
1. Nursing theories help define nursing as a scientific discipline of its own.
2. The elements of nursing theories are uniform- nursing, person, environment, and health; also known as the
paradigm or model of nursing.
3. Nightingale was the first nursing theorist; she believed the purpose of nursing was to put the person in the
best condition for nature to restore or preserve health.
4. More recent nursing theorists include:
Levine- Nursing supports a person's adaptation to change due to internal and external environmental
stimuli.
Orem- Nurses assist the person to meet universal, developmental, and health deviation self-care
requisites.
Roy- Nurses manipulate stimuli to promote adaptation in four modes- physiologic, self-concept, role
function, and interdependence relations.
Neuman- Nurses affect a person's response to stressors in the areas of physiologic, psychological,
sociocultural, and developmental variables.
King- Nurses exchange information with patients, who are open systems to attain mutually set goals.
Rogers- Nurses promote harmonious interaction between the person and environment to maximize
health; both are four-dimensional energy fields.