Influence Of Worldview And Philosophy In Nursing: Personal Philosophy, Nursing Theory, And Practice Development

1. Describe your personal worldview, including the religious, spiritual, and cultural elements that you think most influence your personal philosophy of practice and attitude towards patient care.

2. Choose a specific nursing theory that is most in line with your personal philosophy of practice and approach to patient care and discuss the similarities. Explain how the nursing theory reinforces your approach to care.

3. Include in your explanation a specific example of a past or current practice and how your worldview and the nursing theory could assist you in resolving this issue.

4. Finally, explain how your worldview and the nursing theory will assist you in further developing your future practice.

Discussion

Practice of caring is traditionally known as nursing. On the other hand, nursing philosophy is a personal belief, hopes, attitude, and approach which are part of their practice and education regarding to the study of nursing. It defines how a nurse perceives their profession and actions. To develop a patient care and personal philosophy is a critical aspect for the development of all nurses. It is similarly help nurses to develop their own identity (Foth, Lange & Smith, 2018). Therefore, this study will discuss how a nurses’ own worldview can influence the treatment of a patient care. It will also discuss a nursing theory in accordance with nursing philosophy and how it will assist developing nursing career further.

Worldview is an entity’s own personal faith of their realism which guides their decision making and thinking. I am a catholic RN with a strong belief in spirituality. As a catholic, my personal behaviours and thoughts are generally consistent with the general belief of Catholicism but not always. Generally, I assume that peoples are good and everything happens for a reason. One thing that disappointments me the most is that the disrespect towards women and I tend to get upset when people do not stand up in this situation. Being a born catholic, I believe it help me to look at the world with tolerance, compassion and without judgement. In my honest self-assessment, I believe that being a catholic brings out the better person in me while I am caring for a patient with need. It helps me to be compassionate with them, helps me to take care of them without judgement. It aids me to be respectful and tolerant towards all other cultural belief without reservation and judgement. Catholicism has taught me to be open-minded and acceptant. This supports me to overcome my own bias while taking care for the patient different cultures. Catholicism also taught us that every people have the equal right to the same standard of living and the right to avail same healthcare. It shows me that every person is equal despite their diverse, different cultural background. Thus, I should take care of the patient without any bias or judgement. To summarise, I can say that values and ethics of Catholicism helps me grow as a person as well as a nurse.

As I review different nursing theories, I am most comfortable with the nursing theory known as Transcultural Nursing by Madeleine Leininger. The theory was first introduced in 1978 (Isaacs et al., 2016). Just like my personal philosophy this nursing theory also provides nursing care with beliefs, practices, and cultural values. It also suggests exploring cultural point of view of patients who are receiving care. In today’s world of globalisation, nurses are being exposed to various different cultures. In turn, they are realizing the significance of transcultural nursing (Rosner & Christensen, 2016). To cite one example, the United States is home to a very diverse culture and people from every culture lives in the United States. Hence, nurses in the United States have to be mindful about the diverse culture of patients from different culture. Transcultural nursing theory taught us to understand and recognize the cultural difference, different healthcare views, death, and life. By using formerly mentioned aspect as a framework, transcultural nursing care theory’s goal is to provide respectful care to the patients. Most significant dogma of this theory is that there cannot be any cure without caring (Shen, 2015). In my opinion, this goes hand to hand with my own personal worldview and philosophy. Just like this theory, my personal view is also to provide most respect care to a patient with considering the patient’s personal beliefs and culture. In a nutshell, it can be said that transcultural nursing care will bolster my own philosophy and my approach to patient care.

Worldview and personal philosophy

Modern nursing is based on the holistic nursing practice which is based on an individual’s wholeness. This nursing care came to effect during the twentieth century. The Main pillar of holistic nursing centres on the recognition of choices and rights of the patients (Papathanasiou, Sklavou & Kourkouta, 2013).  According to Leininger, the originator of transcultural nursing, patients are not provided full holistic care by the professionals as it does not include the factors such as religion, environment, culture, and kinship (Holland, 2017). Transcultural nursing emphasises on the importance of not being judgemental while providing care. With comparison to other theories, focus and core of the transcultural nursing theory is care whereas health, nursing, and environment for others. Unlike other theories, it can also be applied effectively to various different scenarios making it very universal (Prosen, 2015). Continuous growth of multicultural community across the globe, especially in the United States, has poses major challenges to provide holistic care to patients. Transcultural can solve this particular problem with its care framework to acknowledge cultural disparities in customs, values, and beliefs. Also, a cultural conflict has risen worldwide due to ignorance towards a particular culture which demands nurses to become more aware of cultural differences. To cite one example, in some culture sitting close is a sign of warmth and care while in another it might be a sign of invasion of personal space. Another example of cultural difference is that Islamic and Jewish culture requires their woman to cover head, legs, and arms to maintain modesty. Asking to remove them due to cultural ignorance can be deeply offending. Also, drinking moderately is perfectly acceptable in Christian culture while it is strictly prohibited in Islamic culture. All of the above examples of conflict could be avoided if nurses adapt transcultural nursing care and study the difference in different culture. Nurses will be able to avoid conflict instead of resolving them as the old proverb says ‘Prevention is better than cure’. They will also be able to provide better holistic care to patients from diverse cultural background. As a by-product it will also diminish stereotyping of people and racism at the same time. Nurses will be taking care of patients from different cultural background more and more due to globalisation and will be confronted by these issues (Kim, 2014). Hence, adapting the transcultural nursing method will help resolve the problem as well as improving the patient care quality.

Preferred theory: Transcultural nursing

In today’s world, every country is becoming more and more multicultural.  Thus, to a nursing student, it is immensely vital that they acquire the cultural competency and awareness to address all levels of holistic care in a professional manner. With this regard, my chosen nursing theory and worldview discussed above will help me immensely to develop my nursing patient care further. To elaborate, understanding and acknowledging different culture can lead to better fulfilment of patient care which in turn will lead to the desired outcome. By adhering to transcultural nursing care, I can add cultural competency to the techniques of current holistic nursing practice which will aid me to serve better. As communities become more and more diverse, I believe, transcultural nursing care will be an added advantage for my nursing career.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that transcultural nursing practice is very much essential to modern nursing practice as nurses will face more and more patient from different cultural background. It is essential for nurses to understand the cultural differences as nurses have the closest contact with the patients. Transcultural nursing practice is the most effective way to achieve that. Finally, no one nursing method is perfect and foolproof and there is an additional need for further research to expand the understanding regarding proficient nursing care.

References

Foth, T., Lange, J., & Smith, K. (2018). Nursing history as philosophy—towards a critical history of nursing. Nursing Philosophy, e12210.

Holland, K. (2017). Cultural care: Knowledge and skills for implementation in practice. In Cultural Awareness in Nursing and Health Care, Third Edition (pp. 23-48). Routledge.

Isaacs, A. N., Raymond, A., Jacob, E., Jones, J., McGrail, M., & Drysdale, M. (2016). Cultural desire need not improve with cultural knowledge: A cross-sectional study of student nurses. Nurse education in practice, 19, 91-96.

Kim, J. H. (2014). A study about cultural sensitivity and stereotype about immigrant women among nursing students. Journal of Digital Convergence, 12(7), 305-314.

Papathanasiou, I., Sklavou, M., & Kourkouta, L. (2013). Holistic nursing care: theories and perspectives. American Journal of Nursing Science, 2(1), 1-5.

Prosen, M. (2015). Introducing transcultural nursing education: implementation of transcultural nursing in the postgraduate nursing curriculum. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 174, 149-155.

Rosner, I. D., & Christensen, J. (2016). Globalisation brought into the classroom–reflections from the local context in social work and nursing education. Tiltai, 74(2), 21-32.

Shen, Z. (2015). Cultural competence models and cultural competence assessment instruments in nursing: a literature review. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 26(3), 308-321.