In the constantly evolving healthcare environment, the client’s psychosocial maintenance is often neglected while disease processes take priority. The importance of maintaining clients’ psychosocial needs while concurrently treating their malady is discussed. Humanistic concepts of noetic locus, pathic touch, and concern are applied to one factual nursing student experience. In conclusion, the necessity of treating the patient as a whole, not merely an illness, creates a stable care environment where the patient can most effectively heal. By citing a single student-nursing encounter, a professional nursing foundation is built along with an applicable philosophy.

The aim of this study was to analyze and describe the conceptions of patients and personnel concerning the patient-nurse relationship in psychiatric post-ward out-patient services. Aphenomenographic approach was used. The four main categories were patient’s appearance, behavior, and nonverbal expression; empowering of the patient; characteristics of patient-nurse relationship; and setting and maintaining limits. Especially in psychiatric nursing, the significance of the patient-nurse relationship needs to be emphasized. In a successful and collaborative patient-nurse relationship, the patient learns to care for him/herself and to restore interest in taking care of him/herself and surviving in everyday life.

Acourse created for senior BSN students clarifies how to enact Jean Watson’s theoretical caring concepts in relation to self, others, peers/co-workers, nursing leadership, local/world communities, the environment, and web-based interactions. Students begin to build unique caring professional identities based on enhanced understanding of caring and through studying others’ professional caring activities. Aculminating project requires each student to create and enact a caring professional activity. This article presents a brief overview of Watson’s Theory of Human Caring and explores how it was applied in the creation of this course.

The past few decades have seen immense change in the conceptualization of vulnerability, resulting in members of vulnerable groups requesting that their subjective experiences be seen as valid. In response, researchers have proposed the use of emancipatory and participatory research; forms of research that would alter the traditional power relationships between researchers and their subjects. This article relates these developments specifically to nursing research and proposes that adopting a humanist philosophy could assist in achieving research that acknowledges vulnerable individuals and their personal experiences, challenges the current norm that puts researchers in control of the research agenda, and frames nursing practice according to caring science principles (ethos).

The United States Army (U.S. Army) has a fine tradition of providing healthcare on the battlefield. In March 2003, the United States military (U.S. military) entered the Iraqi theater of operations. Included in the military package were medical “assets” dedicated to sustain the health of the military fighting men and women, as well as the health of Iraqi detainees. Detainee medical care was a completely new setting where American nurses had not practiced before but where they were vitally needed. The purpose of this article is to describe the broad themes of suffering and healing at Abu Ghraib Internment Facility in Iraq and the mutual culture shock experienced by both sides of the war effort.

Applying the theory of nursing as caring can help the nurse provide family-centered care in nursing situations where there has been a traumatic injury. Family members of trauma patients were surveyed about their perceptions of caring behaviors that nurses directed toward them. The Caring Behaviors Inventory-Family was completed at the time of a visit to the patient in the hospital and returned to a member of the research team. The nurses were positively perceived in caring for families. The data collection tool showed good reliability and validity. Some differences were found in family members’ perception associated with gender, ethnicity, and education.

Interpersonal relationships are at the core of what it is to be human. Inner harmony can only be achieved when there is balance in relationships with others. By examining the connections which link human to human, nurses can expand a caring consciousness to achieve integration of mind, body and spirit. With the guiding principles of caring as the foundation for interpersonal connections, nurses experience healing interactions with patients and colleagues.

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore the experience of caring for individuals and families left homeless and then displaced in the aftermath of destructive hurricanes. The nursing situations, which are reflective stories from the practice of seven undergraduate nursing students, were interpreted to uncover the meaning of caring for others who have experienced disastrous situations. The interpreted findings are three thematic threads that cut across all the texts: building connections to others, appreciating the wholeness of persons, and learning the meaning of caring in nursing. The wholeness of this inquiry is presented using a metaphor to describe the fullness of lives lived, despite being left homeless and displaced by disastrous hurricanes.

Making interpersonal connections during nursing visits in the home is the foundation for effectively influencing health behavior and helping people take charge of their own lives. Consider a young vulnerable public health client describing the outcome of her connection with a public health nurse expert:

I think I’ve always known, all along, how to take care of mysev I think she’s given me the comfort to feel good enough about myself to use those tools again; to take care of myselfwithout feeling degraded or less than anybody else ... she has empowered me that way, letting me actually be who I am and its okay to make these mistakes... Does that make sense? (Marie, 1994).

Developing this kind of connection makes great sense as the means strengthening caring relationships. This paper describes the dimensions of the interpersonal process used by expert community health nurses to develop connectedness during home visits with family clients.

Phenomenology guided the researcher in uncovering the meaning of spiritual nursing care for 11 ill individuals with no religious affiliation. The participants experienced spiritual nursing care through the nurses’ extension of self, which occurred when the nurse saw the participants as unique individuals. Unfortunately, many participants experienced alienation by their nurses. An examination of programs of nursing education curricula at all levels for the inclusion of spiritual nursing care as a concept broader than that of religion is needed. Health initiatives would advance positive outcomes when including spiritual care in the total care needs of all patients.

Communication between a nurse and a patient is a shared process that forms the basis for the professional relationship that is foundational for enhancing patient care and affecting patient outcomes. Both hermeneutical and descriptive methodologies were used to examine nurse-patient communication dimensions and identify patient-preferred nurse behaviors. Patients in three age groups participated in an interview and survey questionnaire. Use of the Nurse-Patient Communication Assessment Tool recognized a one-dimension model of patient-nurse relational communication comprised of calm, comfortable, caring, interested, sincere, accepting, and respectful. Responses to the Health Communication Interview questionnaire identified preferred behaviors patients want and expect from nurses as caring, warm/friendly, professional, competent, empathy, listens, and honest/sincere.

Caring is a complex and multidimensional concept. The quality of interaction in patient care encounters is affected by philosophical beliefs that shape practice design, delivery, and structural aspects of the practice environment. Florida Atlantic University’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing operates two nurse-managed centers that address diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease care; these play a critical role in the reduction of cost of care. In this article, we demonstrate the impact of following a caring philosophy in our centers through intersubjective, interobjective, interior and exterior individual, and collective measures. A philosophy of caring in action allows these centers to become places where the beauty and mystery of the human life experience is lived, studied, and researched.

The purpose of this study was to develop the Caring Behaviors Inventory for Elders (CBI-E) and to establish its psychometric characteristics further. The 28-item CBI-E was framed by Watson’s theory of human caring. Aconvenience sample (N = 215) of elders and their caregivers (N = 138) completed the instrument. Psychometric analysis included item analysis, test-retest reliability, internal consistency reliability with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, contrasted groups construct validity, and factorial validity, using principal components analysis with varimax rotation. Preliminary construct validity was established. Five dimensions of the CBI-E were identified: attending to individual needs, showing respect, practicing knowledgeably and skillfully, respecting autonomy, and supporting religious/spiritual beliefs. Additional testing is warranted.

Many Norwegian nursing students participate in exchange programs in Africa. During their stay, they attend clinical placements and write reflective journals about their experiences. The purpose of this study is to gain knowledge of the topics these students were concerned with during their placement by analyzing their journals. The paper is based on text analysis of 350 reflective journals representing 197 students. The analysis reveals 7 main categories: lack of care, poor administration of work, inadequate communication, incompetence, positive experiences, inadequate hygiene, and poverty. The majority of the topics are negative descriptions of local nursing. This can be a result of the students’ lack of cultural competence as they have few reflections on cultural values but a clear tendency to be judgmental of the local nurses.

The application of Swanson’s (1991) mid-range caring theory in clinical practice is the focus of this paper. The clinical practice example chosen to highlight this theory was an interaction observed by a nursing student between a nursing instructor and an elderly woman who had experienced an embarrassing incidence of bowel incontinence. This example of caring behavior will have a significant influence on the nursing student’s future nursing practice.

Caring, the core of nursing practice, remains a complex and vaguely defined concept. This paper presents various attempts to define caring and factors that affect its demonstration and associated outcomes from perspectives of patients and nurses. An integrative review was conducted from literature indexed in electronic databases from 2003 to 2014. Most published articles on caring were from Western cultures with a limited number from others. Caring was defined as a set of behaviors (knowledge, attitudes, and skills) exhibited in the process and context of the nurse-patient interaction. It is influenced by personal characteristics, culture, and the general environment of the nurse and client engaged in relationship. Caring behaviors were expressed in a continuum from mere presence to the performance of competent nursing care. Caring has been known to produce client satisfaction and positive patient outcomes.