Anne Boykin and Savina O. Schoenhofer's Nursing as Caring Theory - Assignment Example

Nursing as Caring Theory Nursing as Caring Theory The Nursing as Caring theory introduced by Anne Boykin and Savina O. Schoenhofer is based on the central idea that all persons are caring and every person is living in caring. This theoretical model can be considered as a potential framework to guide nursing practice. The major assumptions of this theory include persons’ virtue of humanness is of great influence on caring, and they live and grow their caring from moment to moment when they are whole and complete.

This theory also assumes that personhood promotes the practice of living grounded in caring, and the personhood in turn is enhanced through caring for others. The authors specifically state that nursing is not only a profession but also a discipline. Boykin and Schoenhofer (2010) claim that the Nursing as Caring Theory is a better framework to improve an individual’s understanding of caring as it particularly emphasizes the need of nursing knowledge to increase the care quality and patient safety (p.371). Since this knowledge comes from situations, the Anne Boykin and Savina O.

Schoenhofer consider nursing situation as a key concept of the theory. In actual practice, this theory makes significant contributions to nursing practice, nursing administration, nursing education, and nursing research and development. The Nursing as Caring theory enhances nurses’ knowledge about caring their clients in creative and individualized ways in a situation-specific environment. In addition, as Purnell (2013) purports, this framework assists nursing administrators to develop and implement policies within the organization in order to improve operational efficiency and thereby to achieve higher degree of patient safety (p.371). Evidently, a clear understanding of personhood contributes notably to nursing knowledge and education.

This theoretical framework can be better used by researchers to explore the patterns of caring personality and improve the quality of the care delivered. Since Nursing as Caring is a grand theory, it can be applied to real life situations in collaboration with other nursing theories like Watsons theory of nursing or Orems theory of nursing. Today the growing number of clinical errors becomes a great threat to the medical field, and in most cases the issue is caused by the negligence of caring staff.

Here the theory of Nursing as Caring can be applied to improve the situation because this theory greatly emphasizes the virtue of humanness in a caring environment. When humanness is valued greatly and considerable importance is given to care quality, the chances of medical errors would be minimized. Assume a nursing situation where a hospital is understaffed and the nurse to patient ratio is very poor. Under this healthcare environment, a nurse is compelled to take care of more number of patients and work overtime.

The nurse under such situations is less likely to give proper care to her clients. In this condition, Nursing as Caring Theory can be best applied by the nursing administration to manage the nursing staff thoughtfully and avoid the chances of medical negligence. While evaluating this theory from different perspectives, I strongly opine that the Nursing as Caring Theory is not very useful in the modern health care environment. The major problem is that this nursing theory does not address the concept of family.

Undoubtedly, family can be really an influential factor when it comes to caring for a difficult patient. Therefore, this theory would fail to manage a caring situation where the patient is extremely irresponsive to the care staff’s directions. In addition, this theory was developed decades ago, and hence it does not consider the revolutionary advancements taken place in the field of health care. Above all, as Pope (2011) opine, Nursing as Caring Theory is based on too many assumptions and hence its feasibility is questionable.

ReferencesBoykin, A & Schoenhofer, S. (2010). “Anne Boykin and Savina O. Schoenhofers Nursing as Caring Theory”. In M. E. Parker & Smith, M. C. (Eds.). Nursing Theories & Nursing Practice (3rd ed. pp. 371-372). Philadelphia, PA: F. A. Davis Company. Purnell, M. J. (2013). “The theory of nursing as caring: A model for transforming practice”. In M. R. Alligood (Ed.). Nursing Theorists and Their Work (p. 371). US: Elsevier Health Sciences. Pope, B. L. (2011). Maternal health policy: Nursing legacy and the social security Act of 1935.

UMI Dissertation Publishing. Proquest Library.