Comparing Nursing And Jean Watson's Philosophy Of Caring

What does it mean to live a life filled with caring? As a nurse caring is at the core of our foundation. A nurse is tasked with “nursing” a client through a moment of need in order to restore health, facilitate healing, or prevent further injury or illness. What exactly does it entail to effectively care for a patient? Throughout my life, I have valued caring as an essential component in everyday life, for a life without caring is a life unfilled. My personal philosophy of nursing and Jean Watson’s Philosophy of Caring both were foundational similar. A nursing theory created by Jean Watson focuses on the philosophy and science of caring having four concepts which are based on human beings, health, the environment/society and nursing.

Jean

How do we as a society determine high health standards? As Watson described in her theory there are contributing factors based on an overall physical, mental and social functioning of well-being. Physically we can encourage and teach patients to exercise and eat healthy but is that the passage to achieving optimal health. As a personal trainer, I live by the importance of exercise and nutrition but as a nursing student and through life experiences I have come to realize the importance of mental and social health. A physical assessment of a patient is completed much like a head to toe assessment, the hospital staff is tasked with treating or medicating the patient to control the physical symptoms. Yet not much is provided to a patient on a mental or social health standard. We as professionals are taught to treat the physical issues but we aren’t provided with enough tools to dig deeper with a patient and explore their mental and social health. Similar is Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, Jean Watson believes

Hierarchy of needs begins with lower-order biophysical needs, which include the need for food and fluid, elimination, and ventilation. Next are the lower-order psychophysical needs, which include the need for activity, inactivity, and sexuality.

Caring for an individual has an immense effect on that individual’s life. As nurses, it is our duty to ensure we are caring for the patients. Jean Watson’s theory of caring has been implemented into many practices. Case studies have been completed to test the theory and its effectiveness, an example case study was performed on infertile women in the country of Turkey. After the interviews performed during the case study it was determined that “an analysis of the literature on the infertile person’s expectations of nurses shows that these expectations are compatible with Watson’s therapeutic relationship improvement processes.” () By implementing specific caritas processes from Jean Watson’s theory the participates in the case study showed different views and shared different emotions with the