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The objective of this study was to identify the contributions of the Transpersonal Caring Theory to comprehensive health care, as well as its repercussions on care practices and on overcoming the biomedical paradigm. Methods and materials: this is an integrative review carried out based on a search in Scielo, the Virtual Health Library and the CAPES Journal Portal, processed by the PRISMA 2020 protocol, which identified a total of 906 papers, leaving 9 to compose the final sample. Results: it was demonstrated that the application of transpersonal caring enables an approach to comprehensive and holistic care, as it allows the creation of a genuine relationship between professional and patient, building a healing environment and valuing the totality of human needs. Conclusion: the relevance of the application of the theory was confirmed, as well as its potential to generate effective and humanized health care, capable of breaking with biomedical reductionisms and promoting comprehensiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nowadays, there has been a growing emphasis on the topic of health equity, which refers to the fundamental principle of addressing and resolving disparities in health outcomes and the factors that influence them, such as social determinants. The pursuit of health equity entails a dedicated effort towards achieving the utmost level of health and wellbeing for every individual, while also paying particular attention to those who are most vulnerable to experiencing poor health due to their social circumstances. Purpose: This paper aimed to delve deeply into the concepts of health equity and disparities in healthcare from nursing perspectives, exploring various philosophies, theories, and ethical principles. Furthermore, it aimed to highlight the crucial role that nursing professionals play in promoting health equity and eradicating health disparities. Methods: A scoping review was conducted to identify relevant international reports and literature published in English, multiple electronic databases including Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), ProQuest, MEDLINE, Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, and PubMed were searched. Results: Nursing professionals have a significant role in achieving health equity and eliminating health disparities. Therefore, there has been a growing emphasis on the importance of achieving health equity, enhancing caring and healing connections as the core of professional nursing, alongside the use of theory-guided practice approaches, and nursing philosophies. Consequently, professionals in the field are actively seeking more practical methods that incorporate a sense of purpose and significance into their work to achieve equity based on essential nursing philosophies and theories. Conclusion: Nurses have a unique and advantageous role in the healthcare system, as they have the ability to make a substantial impact on addressing the underlying factors that contribute to health disparities. Furthermore, nurses work closely with interdisciplinary teams, harnessing the power of collaboration and teamwork to effectively implement a range of strategies aimed at promoting fair and equal access to healthcare for all individuals. Implications for Nursing: Nursing professionals have a crucial role in promoting and maintaining health equity, which has been increasingly recognized and emphasized. In addition, they are in a unique position to lead the way in patient care and can make a significant impact in addressing the underlying causes of health disparities by understanding and acknowledging the various factors that influence a person's health and overall well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nowadays, there has been a growing emphasis on the topic of health equity, which refers to the fundamental principle of addressing and resolving disparities in health outcomes and the factors that influence them, such as social determinants. The pursuit of health equity entails a dedicated effort towards achieving the utmost level of health and well-being for every individual, while also paying particular attention to those who are most vulnerable to experiencing poor health due to their social circumstances. Aim: This paper aimed to delve deeply into the concepts of health equity and disparities in healthcare from nursing perspectives, exploring various philosophies, theories, and ethical principles. Furthermore, aimed to highlight the crucial role that nursing professionals play in promoting health equity and eradicating health disparities. Result: Nursing professionals have a significant role in achieving health equity and eliminating health disparities. Therefore, in the past decade, there has been a growing emphasis on the importance of achieving health equity, enhancing caring and healing connections as the core of professional nursing, alongside the use of theory-guided practice approaches, and nursing philosophies. Consequently, professionals in the field are actively seeking more practical methods that incorporate a sense of purpose and significance into their work to achieve equity based on essential nursing philosophies and theories. Conclusion: Nurses have a unique and advantageous role in the healthcare system, as they have the ability to make a substantial impact on addressing the underlying factors that contribute to health disparities. Furthermore, nurses work closely with interdisciplinary teams, harnessing the power of collaboration and teamwork to effectively implement a range of strategies aimed at promoting fair and equal access to healthcare for all individuals.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of dialectical pluralism (DP) for nursing knowledge development. Nursing scholars have discussed ways of developing nursing knowledge, exploring the fit and relevance of various worldviews for knowledge development and examining the dynamic and perpetual processes of knowledge development. Scholars have argued that knowledge development occurs under a certain worldview to which the researcher adheres. Many nurses employ various worldviews, which can give rise to ontological and epistemological conflicts. DP can help nurses appreciate the diversity of worldviews and recognize the importance of implicit worldviews to generate more practical nursing knowledge. DP as a philosophical approach can enable nurses to communicate between diverse worldviews, become tolerant of conflicting differences, and develop an array of nursing knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to critically analyze the idea of the dehumanization of nursing care due to the increasing technologization and technicalization. To examine this idea, it proposes a philosophical analysis of the concepts of technique, technology, nursing care, and dehumanization, establishing three thematic axes: the dehumanization of care, care, and technique as an ontological conception of the human. It is based on philosophical references regarding technique, especially the fable of Hyginus in the work of Heidegger, who offers an interpretation that seeks to integrate technique and care as part of a symbiotic ontology. In conclusion, it is highlighted that technique and care are not opposite concepts: on the contrary, both are constitutive of the human nature and, therefore, blaming technique and technology exclusively for dehumanization is certainly contradictory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current health policy, high‐profile failures and increased media scrutiny have led to a significant focus on patient experience in Britain's National Health Service (NHS). Patient experience data is typically gathered through surveys of satisfaction. The study aimed to support a better understanding of the patient experience and patients' expression of it through consideration of the aspects of the patient experience on NHS wards which are by their nature impossible to capture through patient satisfaction surveys. Existential phenomenology was used to develop an in‐depth exploratory narrative, expressed through the voices of the participants. Data collection involved in‐depth face‐to‐face interviews with 12 purposively sampled participants, with analysis by means of hermeneutics. Though the individuality of each experience was apparent and cannot be overemphasised, common factors emerging from the data included uncertainty and unexpectedness, suffering and finitude, the futility of feedback and bureaucracy and absurdity. Overall, participants demonstrated how their individual personalities and expectations affected their response both to illness or injury and to their hospital admissions, highlighting feelings of vulnerability and voicelessness as a response to hospitalisation. The findings of this study provide useful insight into the patient experience on British hospital wards, and the value of an existential–phenomenological approach is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nursing claims a significant history of engaging philosophical inquiry. To better understand the rationale for this engagement, and what nursing understands itself to achieve through philosophical inquiry, we conducted an interpretive synthesis of the recent nursing literature to identify what nurses are doing when they say they are doing philosophy. The overarching finding was that while vanishingly few articles articulated any definition of philosophy, the synthesis showed how nursing considers philosophical engagement a generative mode for asking and answering questions in/for nursing. Whatever aspects of nursing were focused on in these articles, and they were myriad, philosophy was invoked as an appropriate modality to work through that aspect rigorously, critically, and with an expectation that something "knowledgeable" would result from the effort. Based on the synthesis, we conclude that nursing philosophy could be considered a specific modality of nursing practice by which nursing is both done and delineated, a discursive practice in which we continually assess and explore and adapt and advance our understanding of the discipline in service to advancing our unique efficacy. This definition of "nursing philosophy" provides an opening for further inquiry helping to illuminate its functionalities and potentialities for outputs that can facilitate rigorous practice, education, and scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Missed Nursing Care (MNC) is an emerging problem in care practice environments and nurses play a role as potential causal agents as they are responsible for the decision-making concerning nursing care along the nursing process. Given the increasing incidence of MNC and the harmful consequences it leads to in terms of care safety and quality, raising healthcare professionals’ awareness of MNC is crucial if aiming to reduce its occurrence. The nursing philosophy underpinned on Orlando’s Theory, sets the focus of the nursing practice in the relationship nursing-patient. It further establishes the discipline of the nursing process as a systematic way of evaluating and guaranteeing the satisfaction of the patients’ needs. [In this article we argue that] such processes have the potential of being protective factors to the occurrence of MNC, and consequently promote the patient’s safety and the quality of care.

This paper presents an overview of the process of entanglement at the 25th International Philosophy of Nursing Conference (IPNC) at University of California at Irvine held on August 18, 2022. Representing collective work from the US, Canada, UK and Germany, our panel entitled 'What can critical posthuman philosophies do for nursing?' examined critical posthumanism and its operations and potential in nursing. Critical posthumanism offers an antifascist, feminist, material, affective, and ecologically entangled approach to nursing and healthcare. Rather than focusing on the arguments of each of the three distinct but interrelated panel presentation pieces, this paper instead focuses on process and performance (per/formance) and performativity as relational, connected and situated, with connections to nursing philosophy. Building upon critical feminist and new materialist philosophies, we describe intra‐activity and performativity as ways to dehierarchise knowledge making practices within traditional academic conference spaces. Creating critical cartographies of thinking and being are actions of possibility for building more just and equitable futures for nursing, nurses, and those they accompany—including all humans, nonhumans, and more than human matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a personal dialogue of maneuvering the landscape of scholarship in the United States as a nurse faculty. The principal thesis of this paper is that a discursive shift from margins to mainstream literature has occurred within nursing discourse during the past 20 years as the result of a growing body of work by nurse philosophers. I utilize my own work in nursing philosophy as an exemplar and provide a narrative situated in a feminist‐critical paradigm. This paper: (1) presents a historical background through a critical‐feminist lens of the discursive shift using my own work and lived experiences as exemplars; (2) examines a contemporary mainstream 'authoritative' text as an exemplar of this discursive shift and (3) proposes both potential positive intersections and threats in the future development of nursing philosophy resulting from this discursive shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we use the concept of the person to examine person‐centred dialogue and show how person‐centred dialogue is different from and significantly more than transfer of information, which is the dominant notion in health care. A further motivation for the study is that although person‐centredness as an idea has a strong heritage in nursing and the broader healthcare discourse, person‐centred conversation is usually discussed as a distinct and unitary approach to communication, primarily related to the philosophy of dialogue—the philosophy of Martin Buber. In this paper we start with the concept of person to critically reflect on theoretical perspectives on communication to understand person‐centred conversations in the context of nursing and health. We position the concept of the person through the use of Paul Ricoeur's philosophy and follow by distinguishing four theoretical perspectives on communication before reflecting on the relevance of each of these for person‐centred communication. These perspectives are: a linear view of communication as transfer of information, communication as a relation in the sense of philosophy of dialogue, practice‐based communication on constructionist grounds, and communication as a practice to create social community. In relation to the concept of the person, we do not find transfer of information relevant as a theoretical underpinning for person‐centred conversations. From the other three perspectives that are relevant we distinguish five types of person‐centred conversations pertinent to nursing and health: problem identifying conversations, instructive conversations, guiding and supportive conversations, caring and existential conversations, and therapeutic conversations. Through this analysis it is argued that person‐centred communication and conversations are substantially different to transfer of information. We also discuss the significance of communication adjusted to specific situations, including emphasis on how we speak in relation to the aim or topic of a conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following dialogue takes up recent calls within nursing scholarship to critically imagine alternative nursing futures through the relational process of call and response. Towards this end, the dialogue builds on letters which we, the authors, exchanged as part of the 25th International Nursing Philosophy Conference in 2022. In these letters, we asked of ourselves and each other: If we were to think about a new philosophy of mental health nursing, what are some of the critical questions that we would need to ask? What warrants exploration? In thinking through these questions, our letters facilitated a collaborative enquiry in which philosophy and theory were generative tools for thinking beyond what is and towards what is yet to come. In this paper, we expand the dialogue within these letters—in a 'dialogue‐on‐dialogue'—and take up one thread of our discussion to argue that a new philosophy of mental health nursing must rethink the relationships between 'practitioner'/'self' and 'self'/'other' if it is to create a radically different future. Further, we posit solidarity and public love as possible alternatives to foregrounding the 'work' of mental health nursing. The possibilities we present here should be received as partial, contingent and unfinished. Indeed, our purpose in this paper is to provoke discussion and, in so doing, to model what we believe is a necessary shift towards criticality in our communities of nursing scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discussion around dignity in nursing philosophy has been underway for many years. The literature still lacks philosophical arguments that would justify the thesis that all people have dignity. Scholars who defend dignity as an intrinsic value most often refer to Kant. However, Kant does not seem to be the most suitable candidate to defend the thesis that all human beings possess dignity. In this paper, I attempt to show that Aristotle's and Aquinas's views can help justify this thesis. To this end, I distinguish between actual dignity, potential dignity, and existential dignity. I state that all human beings have existential dignity or potential dignity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to present the life and work of German thinker Hartmut Rosa as a philosopher of interest for nursing. Although his theoretical framework remains fairly unknown in the nursing domain, its main key concepts open up a philosophical and sociological approach that can contribute to the understanding of a wide range of study phenomena related to nurses, nursing, and healthcare. The concepts of social acceleration, alienation, and resonance are useful to explore healthcare organizations' performance by bringing the time dimension of modernity to the center; to grasp nurses' experiences of caring for patients; and to understand nurses as agents endowed with the capacity to deploy their political agency to create alternative forms of relationship to themselves, to others, and the world, challenging the institutional order of healthcare organizations when it fails to resonate with their professional ethos. In this article, we propose Hartmut Rosa's theoretical framework as a new and inspiring phenomenological and critical lens that should be further explored to advance knowledge concerning phenomena that are found at the crossroads of the nursing domain and other fields of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I discuss the concept of 'Decolonizing Nursing', answering what this process is about, and how and when it should be done. I introduce the idea of epistemological dominance and the concepts of colonization and decolonization of nursing knowledge. I describe my experiences of coming from Latin America and facing Anglo‐Saxon academy to discuss core disciplinary nursing knowledge and provide reflections around the decolonization of nursing language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My purpose in this short response to Clinton's interesting article On Bender's orientation to models: Towards a philosophical debate on covering laws, theory, emergence and mechanisms in nursing science, which is published in this issue, is not to provide any counterargument to Clinton's interpretation of my own argument; readers are welcome to interrogate both articles at their leisure and make their own conclusions. What I will do instead is provide a brief critical assessment of my own (il)logic re bringing in the notion of mechanism as conceived by Machamer, Darden and Craver into an argument for models versus theories as a carrier of nursing knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Texto & Contexto Enfermagem is the property of Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Programa de Pos-Graduacao de Enfermagem and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we bring together Foucault's biography and oeuvre to explore key concepts that support the analysis of nurses' acts of resistance. Foucault reflected on the power relations taking place in health services, making his contribution especially useful for the analysis of resistance in this context. Over three decades, he proposed a nonnormative philosophy while concomitantly engaging in transgressive practices guided by values such as human rights and social justice. Hence, Foucault's philosophy and public activism are an apparent contradiction, but we argue that when analysed together they allow for a different understanding of his work. We describe the evolution of the concept of resistance in Foucault's work, supported by the approaches of Brent Picket (1996) and Miguel Morey (2013). Foucault started his work considering the idea of transgressiveness as it connects to being at the margins of society. He then spent considerable time elaborating the concept of power and identifying resistance strategies as forms of power exercise. In doing so, he considered that people engage with social change from multiple positions, including limited desire for change, fomenting reforms, or engaging in everyday revolutionary acts. As he further elaborated on power relations and defined resistance, Foucault asserted that resistance involves both repressive and productive dimensions of power, governance of biological life, state governance, and deliberate practices of illegalisms. Finally, Foucault shifted his attention to the freedom of ethical subjects, proposing the use of counter-conduct and counter-discourses to speak truth against oppression. Such framework offers a comprehensive lens for analysing nurses' acts of resistance within the complexities of the healthcare system and in society. In summary, Foucault's conceptual framework on resistance expands the role of nurses, to understand them not only as caregivers, but also as political agents capable of confronting and transforming oppressive institutional practices., (© 2024 The Author(s). Nursing Philosophy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

On 4 February 2021 a group of nurse scholar‐educators, nurses and other interested folks came together for the second of two virtual events to think together about the role of philosophy in the nursing world. The live streamed open access event provided an opportunity in the COVID‐19 pandemic for over 400 people to listen to five nursing scholars' presentations and to interact virtually through comments in chat and on the @IPONSociety Twitter social media platform. By reading the comments and questions that were generated, and by looking at the social media comments related to the event, it is apparent that philosophy is an important thinking practice for nurses but many audience members critically expressed they felt excluded. Critical issues were raised by participants in chat and on Twitter—pointedly around the need for more representative voices—including the imperative to open nursing philosophy to diverse and disparate worldviews. This dialogue provides a summary of critical points raised during the live question and answer session for the panel entitled Addressing Current Debates in Nursing Theory, Education, Practice as well as examing comments selected from the @IPONSociety Twitter space in response to the panel. One commenter said it was great to see the discussion being lifted up from the influential roots of white supremacy, while other nurses expressed that they wished the panellists themselves were more diverse. In discussion of key takeaway, links are made to historical and ongoing structural oppressions in nursing where thinking practices like nursing philosophy and theory are still dominated by world views emanating from positionalities of able‐bodied cis‐gendered heterosexual western eurocentric whiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This manuscript represents one segment of a philosophical conversation held in a virtual webinar in February 2021 to consider some of the current debates in nursing theory, education and practice, and their relationship to philosophy. The webinar was sponsored by the International Philosophy of Nursing Society and the Centre for Nursing Philosophy at University of California, Irvine as an opportunity provide a venue for important philosophical and theoretical thinking to a wide audience of nurse educators and practitioners around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories and models are not equivalent. I argue that an orientation towards models as a primary carrier of nursing knowledge overcomes many ongoing challenges in philosophy of nursing science, including the theory-practice divide and the paradoxical pursuit of predictive theories in a discipline that is defined by process and a commitment to the non-reducibility of the health/care experience. Scientific models describe and explain the dynamics of specific phenomenon. This is distinct from theory, which is traditionally defined as propositions that explain and/or predict the world. The philosophical case has been made against theoretical universalism, showing that a theory can be true in its domain, but that no domain is universal. Subsequently, philosophers focused on scientific models argued that they do the work of defining the boundary conditions-the domain(s)-of a theory. Further analysis has shown the ways models can be constructed and function independent of theory, meaning models can comprise distinct, autonomous "carriers of scientific knowledge." Models are viewed as representations of the active dynamics, or mechanisms, of a phenomenon. Mechanisms are entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular changes. Importantly, mechanisms are by definition not static: change may alter the mechanism and thereby alter or create entirely new phenomena. Orienting away from theory, and towards models, focuses scholarly activity on dynamics and change. This makes models arguably critical to nursing science, enabling the production of actionable knowledge about the dynamics of process and change in health/care. I briefly explore the implications for nursing-and health/care-knowledge and practice.

Despite the prominence of person‐centred care (PCC) in nursing, there is no general agreement on the assumptions and the meaning of PCC. We sympathize with the work of others who rethink PCC towards relational, embedded, and temporal selfhood rather than individual personhood. Our perspective addresses criticism of humanist assumptions in PCC using critical posthumanism as a diffraction from dominant values We highlight the problematic realities that might be produced in healthcare, leading to some people being more likely to be disenfranchised from healthcare than others. We point to the colonial, homo‐ and transphobic, racist, ableist, and ageist consequences of humanist traditions that have influenced the development of PCC. We describe the deep rooted conditions that structurally uphold inequality and undermine nursing practice that PCC reproduces. We advocate for the self‐determination of patients and emphasize that we support the fundamental mechanisms of PCC enabling patients' choice; however, without critical introspection, these are limited to a portion of humans. Last, we present limitations of our perspective based on our white*‐cisheteropatriarchy** positionality. We point to the fact that any reimagining of models such as PCC should be carefully done by listening, following, and ceding power to people with diversity dimensions*** and the lived experience or expertise that exists from diverse perspectives. We point towards Black, queer feminism, and critical disabilities studies to contextualize our point of critique with humanism and PCC to amplify equity for all people and communities. Theory and philosophy are useful to understand restrictive factors in healthcare delivery and to inform systematic strategies to improve the quality of care so as not to perpetuate the oppression of groups of people with diversity dimensions. *We purposely capitalize Black and use lower case for white to decentre whiteness and as an intentional act of antiracism (see White Homework a podcast series by Tori W. Douglas). **Cisheteropatriarchy describes people with intersecting identities of dominant social groups; cisgender is the gender identity that aligns with the gender you were assigned at birth, hetero means heterosexual, and patriarchy refers to structural systems of power based on maleness where women are often excluded and hold less power. ***With diversity dimensions, we refer to subjective lived experience and material realities of people that exist outside the 'dominant minorities' of white‐cisheteropatriarchy, meaning groups of people in society who historically and currently hold more power and through this, structurally dominate the norms and possibilities of living for other people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To create disciplinary knowledge derived from philosophical reflections focused on the practice of the Nurse who provides care to people with mental suffering, through the construction of a Nursing Situation Narrative. Method: A narrative writing was elaborated in the First Diploma of Philosophy in Nursing attended by professors of the School of Nursing of the Universidad del Valle, favoring the study of theoretical concepts associated with the professional practice of the assistants; from the construction of Nursing Situations. Result: A Nursing Situation was written using the narrative strategy derived from the professional experience of the teacher writer as Coordinator of a Home Care Program in a Level III Psychiatric Hospital in the city of Cali. The writing was analyzed according to the theory of Psychodynamic Nursing consonant with the Interactive Integrative vision of Nursing. Conclusion: The construction of disciplinary knowledge supported by narratives of Nursing Situations, facilitates the philosophical approaches of Nursing in a scientific and humanized way. For its part, care under the relational psychodynamic approach, vindicates human interaction based on communication, empathy, warmth and opportunity; generating that the Nurse - Care Subject relationship is itself therapeutic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article summarizes a virtual live‐streamed panel event that occurred in August 2020 and was cosponsored by the International Philosophy of Nursing Society (IPONS) and the University of California, Irvine's Center for Nursing Philosophy. The event consisted of a series of three self‐contained panel discussions focusing on the past, present and future of IPONS and was moderated by the current Chair of IPONS, Catherine Green. The first panel discussion explored the history of IPONS and the journal Nursing Philosophy. The second panel involved a reflection on the challenges of doing nursing philosophy in a research‐intensive context of a Canadian university and the history and current movements in nursing philosophy in the Nordic countries. The final panel involved presentations on the future potential for philosophy in/and for nursing, the critical connections between nursing philosophy and nursing theory, dismantling racism in nursing and the potential for process philosophy to help explore nursing's unique efficacy in creating possibilities for health. The panels were followed by a lively Q&A session with participants, of which there were 252 registrants from across the globe. The event underscored the wide and diverse interests of nurses in philosophical discussion and the need for more virtual events and other connective modalities bringing nurses together to discuss and analyze the value and potential of philosophy to better understand and advance nursing theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Objective: to understand the life experiences that favor transcendence of the elderly being. Method: a qualitative phenomenological hermeneutic study, in two groups of elderly coexistence. The selection of participants was by intentional sampling: 11 elderly, achieving theoretical saturation. Data collection was carried out through a phenomenological interview with a detonating question. Ethical principles of the General Health Law in health research were fulfilled. Analysis with Heideggerian hermeneutic circle was performed. Results: unity of meaning on the consciousness of a higher power for transcendence is highlighted, where spirituality and religiosity are resources of the elderly for strength, feel protected, overcome difficult situations and reach fullness; both favor the understanding of their historicity by manifesting enlightenment. Final considerations: transcendence of the elderly being is favored with spirituality and the experiences of their daily life are imbued with a spiritual and religious relationship that give meaning to their existence.

ABSTRACT Objective: Analyze the meaning of being an elderly person living in a long-term institution. Method: Qualitative study based on Martin Heidegger’s thought. Twelve phenomenological interviews were conducted with people aged over 60 years living in a long-term institution for the elderly in the city of Itabuna, Bahia, Brazil. Results: The units of meaning identified were: experience of progressive loss of autonomy and independence, perception of living in an institution as an inevitable circumstance; and being-with becoming being-alone/being-lonely. After the identification of ontic aspects and hermeneutical understanding, the unit of meaning was constructed: meaning of being an elderly person living in a long-term institution. Final considerations: The ontological needs referring to being an elderly person remain forgotten. As we are ontic and ontological, limited care to the ontic instance indicates deficiencies in institutionalization. Improvements are required to ensure the right to age with quality of life to this population.

Background: Registered Nurses are expected to have acquired knowledge about the fundamental concepts within nursing science throughout their training and clinical work. However, the terminology and the concept of caring are debated; therefore, there is a need for a continuous critical investigation of scientific concepts within the area of nursing. Objectives: To illuminate nurses' perception about the meaning of the scientific concept of caring. Design: A qualitative systematic literature search was performed that subsequently underwent a descriptive meta‐synthesis in line with Deborah Finfgeld's descriptive meta‐synthesis methodology. Data sources/review method: Scientific articles published between 1 January 2003 and 25 January 2018 were identified and retrieved from CINAHL and PubMed. Each included study was assessed and critically appraised. Data were extracted, analysed and coded into categories resulting in four different themes in accordance with descriptive meta‐synthesis. Results: Four themes emerged in the analysis: 'To be', 'To want', 'To be able to' and 'To do'. These comprise different aspects within physical and metaphysical dimensions where simultaneously interact and influence each other. Conclusion: There are central elements to the practice of caring that are separated in their simplicity but at the same time coherent, where no part can exist without the others in the practice of caring. There are shortcomings concerning current nursing theories, nursing philosophies and organisational documents related to varied aspects based on what is included in the practice of caring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, nursing research and practice have been through remarkable transformations in response to evolving and emerging healthcare systems and practices. Regarding research, nurses moved beyond merely using the quantitative methodology to combining qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. In practice, nurses have transitioned from the delivery of medical‐based care to nursing theory‐guided practice, evidence‐based practice, knowledge translation and transformative practice. Some domains of nursing research and practice became progressive, while others degenerated. This paper aims to examine how different domains of nursing research and practice progress and degenerate using Imre Lakatos's methodology of scientific research programs. Lakatos differentiated scientific and pseudoscientific knowledge and coined the idea of scientific research programs. He believed that science in any discipline develops so that some programs are more progressive and others' degenerative. The degeneration and progression of programs occur steadily and rationally and are determined based on the extent of development and programs' potential to predict new solutions to old problems. Adopting this idea could enable nurses to critically analyse research programs in everyday knowledge development to use valid and legitimate programs for informing nursing practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the concept of virtue in nursing care. We particularly examine the description of 'virtue' offered by Aristotle, who considers it the mental constitution that forms the basis for laudable social behaviour. We then turn to Katie Eriksson's work on caritative caring ethics and draw parallels between the Aristotelian concept of virtue and being a good nurse. Eriksson suggests that embracing an ethos, a set of basic values, affects nurses' attitudes as well as the way they speak and take on their responsibility for the patient. We discuss these ideas in relation to a tentative ideal model of the movement from ethos to action to understand and address nurses' ethical thinking and acting. Here, we focus on the catalytic role of virtue as a means for realizing a deliberate, intentional acting with the best of the patient in mind. As an outcome of our analysis, we suggest that the movement of virtue from ethos to action is most usefully conceptualized as knowledge about facts, habits of the heart, deeds of the hand and the power of words. Implications for nursing leadership are suggested, including incorporating organizational values through the means of ethical conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nursing knowledge development and application are influenced by numerous factors within the context of science and practice. The prevailing culture of science along with an evolving context of increasingly technological environments and rationalization within health care impacts both the generation of nursing knowledge and the practice of nursing. The effects of the culture of science and the context of nursing practice may negatively impact the structure and application of nursing knowledge, how nurses practice, and how nurses understand the patients and families for whom they care. Specifically, the nature of critical care and its highly technical environment make critical care nursing especially vulnerable to these potentially negative influences. The influences of the culture of science and the increasingly technical practice context may result in an overreliance on the natural sciences to guide critical care nursing actions and an associated marginalization of the caring relationship in critical care nursing practice. Within this environment, nursing philosophy may not be foundational to nursing actions; rather, the dominant culture of science and the rationalization of health care may be informing nursing practice. As such, the ideology and goals of nursing may not be central to the practice of critical care nursing. The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of the culture of science on the development of nursing knowledge and theory. Further, we aim to describe the value of using conceptual frameworks, such as Roy's Adaptation Model, as a nursing philosophy to influence the development of person‐centred nursing knowledge and theory to inform critical care nursing practice as it related to the care of patients and families. In doing so, nursing philosophy is situated as foundational for nursing actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophical inquiries in nursing are useful for analysing and critiquing existing practices, exploring contextual factors affecting practice, adapting to and sustaining ongoing changes in knowledge development, and facilitating the linkages between theory, research and practice. Nurse scholars used several philosophical schools of thought to guide knowledge development and practice. Pragmatism has been described as essential for bridging the theory–practice gap, for engaging in the inquiry‐based practice and for translating knowledge into practice. The existing descriptions of pragmatism rely on rudimentary descriptions of "what works" and "inquiry‐based action" aspects. However, the operationalist and inferentialist aspects of pragmatism and their worth for nursing knowledge development and practice are yet to be discussed. This paper explores the operationalist and inferentialist pragmatism and highlights the implications of these aspects for nursing knowledge development and practice. It has been argued that the dual aspect of pragmatism offers an approach to develop practical lines of action, evaluate actions in terms of their usefulness and assimilate already learned actions with the new actions. I suggested that moving beyond the rudimentary understanding of pragmatism and embracing and utilizing the dual aspect of pragmatism can bring more significant benefits for nursing. Embracing the dual aspect of pragmatism can enable nurses in developing philosophical reflexivity, emphasizing the experiential context of nursing, generating actionable and ready to use knowledge, and utilizing nursing theories to their fullest potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1978, Barbara Carper named personal knowing as a fundamental way of knowing in our discipline. By that, she meant the discovery of self‐and‐other, arrived at through reflection, synthesis of perceptions and connecting with what is known. Along with empirics, aesthetics and ethics, personal knowing was understood as an essential attribute of nursing knowledge evolution, setting the context for the nurse to become receptively attentive to and engaged within the interpersonal processes of practice. Although much has been done over the 40 years since Carper described these ways of knowing, and we have seen enormous advances in empirics and ethics, and I would argue even in aesthetics (understanding the subtle craft of nursing in action), personal knowing may not have attracted its fair share of critical unpacking. Further, we see increasing evidence of a distortion on how forms of personal knowledge, including beliefs and attitudes, are being taken up within segments of the profession; these include legitimizing idiosyncratic positionings and, most worrisome, challenges to the idea that there are and ought to be fundamental truths within nursing that stand as central to disciplinary knowledge. In this paper, the author reflects on the confusion that a continued uncritical deference to personal knowing may be creating and the evolving interests it seems to serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current situation in which the humanities are disparaged affects all university disciplines, including nursing, in whose historical evolution the humanities have always been present in one form or another. Looking beyond this disrepute, this study proposes that nursing renew its attention to classical philosophy. Specifically, it invites a close reading of Xenophon's Anabasis and Plato's Meno, to get three related goals: to show how the use of ancient texts are very valuable tools for the philosophical initiation of nursing students and can help them reflect on their choice of nursing as a practical activity; to reflect on the problem of virtue and the nature of the good life; and to show how the interaction with ancient texts allows students to reflect on questions and issues of life, theirs and others, that are not open to investigation through a purely scientific method. Consequently, both Anabasis and Meno readings strengthen the intellectual relationship between philosophy and nursing, enabling the latter to delve deeper into the key questions of its own thought as a discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. Think about the caring moment as a phenomenological encounter between nurse and cared person in the light of Jean Watson’s theory. Methodology. It is a theoretical-philosophical analysis based on Jean Watson’s caring moment and the perspective of other authors in this objet. Results. Nursing as a discipline embraces the concept of humanized care as a form of expansion of being through the phenomenological encounter of two people, a person who cares and one who is being cared. This meeting is known as caring moment, where the most supreme forms of healing are linked. Conclusion. The nurse as a caregiver meets a person who is being cared through a transpersonal encounter that must be unique, where their life stories converge in a caring moment that is able to harmonize body, mind and spirit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The era of the 1960s and 1970s saw nurses strive to understand nursing from theoretical viewpoints. • Several theoretical ideas from this era stand out as enduring gifts to nursing today. • The gift idea of dignity from Wiedenbach is cited as a foundational moral value. • Gifts of Orem, Johnson, Roy, Orlando, and Rogers have enduring nursing relevance. • These gifts enrich our vision of the present and future of nursing knowledge. In this essay, I propose there are enduring ideas in the works of nurse theorists from the 1960s and 1970s that were valuable not only in the past, but in nursing today as well as in possibly shaping the future of nursing knowledge development. I identify these as gift ideas and draw on the work of Wiedenbach for the gift of dignity in nursing philosophy, and the gifts of dialogue from Orlando, behavioral systems from Johnson, context from Roy, self-care from Orem, and finally the gift of nursing science as emergent in understanding life processes from Rogers. Although the core of nursing knowledge may be elusive, the gift ideas mentioned in this essay provide some guideposts in articulating and developing that core in the present as well as in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nursing has a considerable history of theory development but has consistently struggled to reconcile theoretical reality and practice realities. Many authors have attempted to reconcile what has been called the "theory–practice gap," but the space where these two realities enmesh has remained problematic and contentious (Aimei, Macau Journal of Nursing, 14, 2015, 13; Factor, Matienzo, & de Guzman, Nurse Education Today, 57, 2017, 82). The idea of the theory–practice gap has a significant history in nursing, but also continues to have a significant presence within nursing literature and mythology up to the present (Aimei, Macau Journal of Nursing, 14, 2015, 13). In this paper, the space between theoretic reality and practice reality, as evidenced by the theory–practice gap, will be examined. A Heideggerian perspective of "dwelling" (Heidegger, 1971, Poetry, language, thought, New York, NY: Harper Colophon) will be used as a guiding discourse to move nursing away from this classic tension between theory and practice, towards a perspective where theory and practice are woven together as part of one reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serious mental illness (SMI) has long posed a dilemma to society. The use of community treatment orders (CTOs), a legal means by which to deliver mandated psychiatric treatment to individuals while they live in the community, is a contemporary technique for managing SMI. CTOs (or a similar legal mechanism) are used in every province in Canada and in many jurisdictions around the world in the care and management of clients with severe and persistent mental illness (most frequently schizophrenia) who have a history of treatment non‐compliance and subsequent relapse. Although there is ongoing controversy around CTOs, their use continues to be on the rise. René Girard's mimetic theory, in which he posits the social utility of the scapegoat mechanism, may shed some light on how established cultural patterns contribute to contemporary responses to SMI: how culture depends on the reproduction of certain narratives, and how these act to shape the identity of those involved. The CTO specifically can be seen to act as a scapegoating mechanism, wherein, by singling out and controlling individuals who appear to threaten social order, social order is restored. This paper reviews Girard's theory, looks at how it has been applied to SMI, and then considers how it may illuminate the social role of the CTO. This examination may provide mental health nurses with insight into the constructed identities of their patients, as well as the role of mental health care within broader cultural narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nursing theories are typically anthropocentric and emphasize caring for a person as a unitary whole. They maintain the dualisms of human–nonhuman, natural–social and material–ideal. Recent developments in nonhuman ontology question the utility of that approach. One important philosopher in this new materialism is political theorist Jane Bennett. In this paper, I explore Bennett's vital materialism and enchantment as two concepts arising from the nonhuman turn that should inform nursing philosophy. Vital materialism considers the lively power of matter to affect the world and be affected in relations. Enchantment refers to a sense of wonder and captivation with matter. While summarizing her important contributions, I also describe common criticisms and responses. I consider the human as an assemblage of matter as well as the agency or "thing power" of matter external to humans. This has implications for nursing thought and practice, and it can inform a more capacious research methodology. I also discuss how compassion fatigue or burnout and other professional issues may be seen as a form of disenchantment with the material world. I argue that embracing these and other elements of Bennett's new materialist philosophy can help nurses and other health professionals enrich their theories and practice to advance their disciplines and improve care for persons and populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Descriptive text of a retrospective nature, with the objective to discuss the importance of communication in providing patients with safe nursing care. The study was conducted in the last quarter of 2015. The work is composed of 13 articles selected by year of publication, from 2011 to 2015, in the EBSCOhost Research Databases and Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS) database, along with all the basic works of the philosopher Martin Buber. Safe and people-centric care is based on a dichotomous relationship-dialogue concept in nursing care, understanding human beings from a holistic perspective and in the belief that dialogue should be viewed as something more than a mechanism for communication, but one replete with significances.

Abstract: Mainstream nursing history often positions itself in opposition to philosophy and many nursing historians are reticent of theorizing. In the quest to illuminate the lives of nurses and women current historical approaches are driven by reformist aspirations but are based on the conception that nursing or caring is basically good and the timelessness of universal values. This has the effect of essentialising political categories of identity such as class, race and gender. This kind of history is about affirmation rather than friction and about the conservation of memory and musealization. In contrast, we will focus on how we imagine nursing history could be used as a philosophical, critical perspective to challenge the ongoing transformations of our societies. Existing reality must be confronted with strangeness and the historically different can assume the function of this counterpart, meaning present and past must continuously be set in relation to each other. Thus, critical history is always the history of the present but not merely the pre‐history of the present – critique must rather present different realities and different certainties. In this paper, we use this approach to discuss the implementation of the nursing process (NP) in Germany. The nursing process appears to be a technology that helped to set up an infrastructure ‐ or assemblage ‐ to transform nursing interventions into a commodity exchangable between consumers and nurses in a free market. In our theoretical perspective, we argue that NP was a step in the realization of the German ordoliberal program, a specific variety of neoliberalism. In order to implement market‐orientation in the healthcare system it was necessary to transform hospitals into calculable spaces and to make all performances in the hospital calculable. This radically transformed not just the systems, but the ways in which nurses and patients conveived of themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The present study reports the findings of a qualitative, descriptive study that sought to clarify nursing philosophy for community mental health nurses (CMHN) working at independent psychiatric home‐visit nursing agencies in Japan. We carried out participant observation and semistructured interviews with 13 CMHN in rural and urban areas. We identified eight subthemes and three higher‐order themes based on these subthemes. CMHN embraced a nursing philosophy in which they: (i) have respect for consumers’ ways of life and their self‐realization; (ii) find harmony between view of life and work; and (iii) build communities where residents support each other beyond their roles. Together, these themes constitute a valuable nursing philosophy that supports the recovery of people with mental illness. The themes could also help educate professionals about principles and meanings relevant to recovery, which are regarded as key to changing the professional's care paradigm from a biomedical model to a recovery model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Objective: Theoretical reflection that uses Reflexivity as a theoretical reference and its objective is to approach Donald Schön's reflective thinking, interrelating it with the innovative curriculum. Method: The writings of Schön and other authors who addressed the themes in their works were used. Results: The innovative curriculum as an expression of dissatisfaction with the fragmentation paradigm may favor reflective practice, since it is necessary to mobilize reflexivity for actions and contexts that are unpredictable in the field of health promotion. Conclusions: The innovative curriculum favors and is favored by a reflective practice and the development of competencies for the promotion of health. Implications for practice: The findings apply to the practice of nurses to deal with the conditioning and determinants of the health-disease process.

Although a widely used concept in health care, person-centred care remains somewhat ambiguous. In the field of palliative care, person-centred care is considered a historically distinct ideal and yet there continues to be a dearth of conceptual clarity. Person-centred care is also challenged by the pull of standardization that characterizes much of health service delivery. The conceptual ambiguity becomes especially problematic in contemporary pluralistic societies, particularly in the light of continued inequities in healthcare access and disparities in health outcomes. Our aim was to explicate premises and underlying assumptions regarding person-centred care in the context of palliative care with an attempt to bridge the apparently competing agendas of individualization versus standardization, and individuals versus populations. By positioning person-centredness in relation to the hermeneutics of the self according to Paul Ricœur, dialectics between individualization and standardization, and between individuals and populations were constructed. The competing agendas were related in a dialectic manner in the way that population health is of importance for the individual, and standardization is of importance for the population. The analysis suggests that person-centred care is an ethical stance, which gives prominence to both suffering and capability of the individual as a person. The dialectic analysis points towards the importance of extending person-centred care to encompass population and societal perspectives and thereby avoiding a problematic tendency of affiliating person-centred care with exclusively individualistic perspectives. Considerations for person-centred palliative care on micro-, meso- and macrolevels conclude the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]