Nature Of Nursing Theory

Nursing Theory

According to Chinn & Kramer (2011), theory is defined as “creative and rigorous structure of ideas that project a tentative, purposeful and systemic view of phenomena” (as cited in McEwen & Wills, 2014, pg. 25). In addition, a theory is a set of assumptions, principles, or propositions that explain or guide actions. Before nursing theory, the nursing practice was not guided by any research or rational but mostly by traditional or ritualistic tasks. Therefore, the nursing theory emerged to clarify nursing practice with intellectual and interactional domains and to illustrate nursing practice as an expert practice rather than just carrying out tasks (McEwen & Wills, 2014). The purpose of this paper is to describe the difference

11). Nursing philosophy is a belief system that provides perspective on practice, scholarship, and research. It is recognized as a “multiparadigm discipline” which is consist of multiple worldviews that are unified for knowledge development (McEwen & Wills, 2014). Philosophy of nursing directs nursing practice through understanding and examination of nursing concepts, theories, and laws. It tries to understand the truth about nursing and how to describe it (McEwen & Wills, 2014). Hence, it is important because it would be difficult to be a nurse without knowing what nursing is and nursing philosophy does just

Most recently the “postmodernism” worldview has got most of the attention from nursing (McEwen & Wills, 2014). The received view consist of empiricism, positivism and logical positivism. This worldview is based on research and objectivism, all beliefs had to be verified through scientific methodology. Therefore, this worldview guided nursing research that was based on scientific methods. Early nurse’s scientist embraces the traditional and experimental methods as the guide in nursing research (McEwen & Wills, 2014). On the other hand, the perceived view stressed the importance of lived experiences, learned reality and human interpretation. It stressed that there could not be one single truth. Phenomenology which is part of perceived view recognized the importance of individual experiences, values, and perspective (McEwen & Wills, 2014). It also recognized that each individual experience is unique. This worldview was accepted by the nurse’s theorists and is viewed as important for nursing practice theory and education. Both the received view and perceived viewed were accepted by nursing theorists (McEwen & Wills,