As healthcare systems across the world have evolved, so have the responsibilities of nurses. Nurses increasingly cope with patients’ enhanced comprehension and problems associated with acute and chronic health issues. Even with these issues, nurses must find a way to continue caring for their patients. The concept of care that Jean Watson espouses may be helpful to nurses in their work with patients. Nurses are uniquely qualified to use these components in a way that meets each patient’s unique set of demands (Current Nursing, 2012). Following Watson’s Care Theory, nurses may adhere to a set of universally accepted norms for providing excellent patient care. Professionals in the medical industry undergo training on treating patients and their families with compassion and understanding while also supporting healing, recovery, and a feeling of self-worth.
Jean Watson’s Caring Theory is generally applicable because of the patients’ humanistic, spiritual, and compassionate care. A few of the essential qualities we appreciate are compassion, trust in others, spiritual practice, and fostering an environment favorable to healing (Watson, 2008). The fact that Jeans Watson’s Caring Theory goes beyond spiritual healing is one of the reasons it is the best alternative. This concept affirms the patient’s entitlement to respect and dignity as well as the moral need to look out for others. In practice, a patient’s rehabilitation may be supported by the foundation of love, which allows them to feel real love, supporting their healing process. Nursing philosophy has been unified throughout Chicago’s eight hospitals by the city’s senior nurse leaders. They came to the conclusion that all nursing institutions should adhere to Jean Watson’s Caring Theory and its core principles (Rosenberg, 2006).
The nurse-patient connection might be established at the first encounter. Keeping positive patients while treating them with respect and decency is two ways the nurse may do. Caring Theory, developed by Jean Watson, states that nurses should treat patients as they would want to be treated if they were in a hospital during their final days. Even while maintaining the greatest level of professionalism, the nurse should show genuine care for the patient’s well-being. Transpersonal care may help patients feel more at ease in a medical condition. By putting Jean Watson’s Caring theory into practice, a nurse may aid a patient feel more at peace, increase their sense of self-worth and broaden their spirituality. A humanitarian and human science approach examines caring processes, events, and experiences. Caring for science involves both the sciences and the humanities. Care science uses a humanitarian, human science approach to investigate how people care and the events and experiences that result from that care. Caring science spans both the arts and the sciences (Watson Caring Science, 2013). To attain a healthier mental state, a nurse who sincerely believes in this notion would work with the patient to establish a healthy balance.
The Watson Caring Theory aims to teach prospective Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) about the finest nursing care methods. To influence their clinical practice, advanced practice nurses must be well-versed in theory and research. The APN may cooperate with clinicians to treat patients with dangerous behaviours using the Jean Watson Caring Theory application. When developing a treatment plan, a patient’s total health, including spiritual and psychological well-being, should be taken into account. A personal connection between the patient and their APN is required for good patient care, according to the Jean Watson Caring Theory. Compassion, decency, and respect are all characteristics that influence a patient’s reaction. The APN may have a favorable influence on patient risk behavior, according to Jean Watson’s Caring Theory.
Medical improvements of the twenty-first century have made it possible for better health care and training, more patient safety and coordination, better equipment, faster results from labs, more comprehensive records of treatment for patient access, and so on (King et al., 2021).
Nurses and other healthcare staff, on the other hand, are inclined to dehumanize patient care much too often. We live in a technologically savvy world, which means that the amount of time that nurses spend with patients has dropped. Because of the increased occurrence of fast and impersonal encounters, medical practitioners are less likely to get to know and care for their patients on a personal level. Instead, they view their patients more like medical cases or items. A patient’s mind and body are compassionate; hence, situations like these should never occur.
According to Jane Watson, the human science of individuals and their health-illness experiences mediated via professional, personal, scientific and ethical human care exchanges is nursing. Creative, transpersonal care interactions and caring moments are three important nursing ideas, according to Watson’s Theory of Human Caring.
Undergraduate nursing education is better because of Jean Watson’s work. Nursing, according to Watson, is more than simply a job; it’s a connection between a nurse and her patients. In Watson’s opinion, the essential part of being a nurse is caring for patients. According to her article on nursing and health care, their personal and professional behaviors are undergoing a paradigm shift. A professional, ethical covenant between nurses and the public, she says, is essential to safeguard human care when it is imperiled. It takes more than just a “consumer model” approach to make this covenant work (Watson, 2008).
Compassion, kindness, and body awareness are all essential qualities for a successful career as a nurse. Nursing may make a difference in patients’ lives and help them achieve their maximum health by creating an atmosphere that promotes both patient and nurse knowledge and understanding of each other as holistic beings, according to her. Nurses may create trust with their patients, their primary source of support, by being honest and caring (Watson, 2018). Patient-nurse interaction improves communication and gives patients the confidence to express themselves without fear of being condemned.
Jane Watson provided the basis for modern nursing practice by defining the creative components. Ten distinct components make up the “carative factors,” which are essential considerations for nurses. In addition to providing exceptional customer service, nurses are expected to provide each patient with individualized, humanistic, and compassionate care as part of their job responsibilities. Although “curative factors” relate to the treatment of a disease, this should not be confused with “curative factors” (Watson, 2019).
Caring, humanistic values, such as compassion for oneself and those around you, as well as faith in God, and a willingness to share those values with others, are all part of the humanistic-altruistic package. Humans need assistance, and the existential-phenomenological-spiritual components of care are all considered throughout this process (Watson, 2008).
Watson’s definition of health encompasses not only physical but also mental and social well-being and the inherent abilities that each of these brings. In this context, Watson’s definition of health pertains to the mental and spiritual components of health rather than the absence of sickness or perfect physical health. Having a healthy body, mind, and soul can be defined as being in tune with one’s social and natural surroundings and with one’s inner self and those around one (King, 2021). Watson defines nursing as a career in which one’s primary goal is to help others stay healthy by avoiding sickness and improving overall well-being.
When it comes to patient care, nurses benefit greatly from Jean Watson’s knowledge of human compassion. Based on catalytic elements and clinical Caritas processes, Watson’s idea is built. Watson’s theory may be used by any health care provider to provide comprehensive therapy since it considers the patient’s mind, body, and spirit.
Watson believes that nurses and patients must be able to relate on a human level. As a licensed practical nurse, Watson is responsible for the health and well-being of both her patients and their families. There are components of Watson’s theory of human caring that may be employed in everyday nursing practice. Using these criteria on a regular basis may assist both nurses and patients in the clinical environment described above.
References
Current Nursing. (2012). Jean Watson’s philosophy of nursing. Retrieved from http://currentnursing.com/nursing_theory/Watson.html
King, C., Rossetti, J., Smith, T. J., Smyth, S., Moscatel, S., Raison, M., … & Watson, J. (2021). Workplace Incivility and Nursing Staff: An Analysis Through the Lens of Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring. International Journal for Human Caring, 25(4), 283-291.
Rosenberg.S. (2006). Utilizing the Jean Watsons Caring Theory within the computerized clinical document system. Informatics Nursing, 24(1), 53-56
Watson Caring Science Institute. (2013).Caring science. Retrieved from http://watsoncaringscience.org/about-us/caring-science-definitions-processes-theory/
Watson, J. (2008). Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring (rev. ed.), Boulder: University Press of Colorado
Watson, J. (2018). Integrative nursing and caring science: Universals of human caring and healing. Integrative Nursing, 20-28. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190851040.003.0002
Watson, J. (2019). Caring and nursing science: Contemporary discourse. Assessing and Measuring Caring in Nursing and Health Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1891/9780826195425.0002
Watson, J. (2019). Introduction: Measuring caring. Assessing and Measuring Caring in Nursing and Health Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1891/9780826195425.0001
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