Nursing – Theories and Concepts of Nursing

Nursing – Theories and Concepts of Nursing
Florence Nightingale
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Introduction
One feature of any particular profession is to exhibit a distinctive body of knowledge. The impulsion for that knowledge may be inform of a model, theory or framework. A conceptual framework, which is more typical of a model, is regarded as a set of concepts and the assumptions that assimilate them into a significant configuration. A theory on the other hand, is a set of interrelated concepts, proportions and definitions, which provides a systematic view of a phenomenon by specifying such a relationship. The incorporation of nursing practice theories and concepts in a health care setting is an illustration that the nursing practitioners embrace nursing as a professional. In addition, these theories and concepts facilitates the advancement of these profession as well as meeting the needs that were established set by the American Nurses Credentialing Center' (ANCC's) Magnet Recognition Program ( Horton et al, 2011).
Nursing theory provides an organized structure for a nursing practitioner to effectively answering queries regarding his or her profession. In essence, there are four major concepts which nursing theories use to predict, explain, describe or control the phenomena that are related to the practice of nursing. Each nursing theory addresses the four main concepts such as the environment, person, health and the nursing itself. Moreover, each of these theories defines these concepts in different ways. For instance, while other theories describe nursing as a process of human interaction, there are those stressing the nurse’s role as assisting patients in maintaining their health status (Kim, 2005).
The concepts on the other hand, assist in directing the nursing practices with a particular health organization. For instance, nurse practitioners at a psychiatric health facility may decide to embrace the...