In the present day, the concept of person-centered care is becoming immeasurably significant within nursing on a worldwide basis. It is frequently used to describe the standards of health care delivery that are characterized by the significance of the patients’ needs regardless of their cultural, religious, and individual peculiarities. As the concept of person-centered health care may be regarded as multidimensional, its practical application is substantial. There are multiple theoretical and conceptual advancements in the sphere of person-centered care.
One of the mid-range theories that contributed to the development of health care delivery, especially for nurse practitioners who occupy with families, is the Person-Centred Care Nursing (PCN) Framework. The framework was elaborated by B. McCormack and T. McCance on the basis of previous research that focused on the experience of nursing care and the practice of person-centered care delivery to older patients (McCormack & McCance, 2006).
It was developed “through an iterative process and involved a series of systematic steps to combine two existing conceptual frameworks derived from empirical studies” (McCormack & McCance, 2006, p. 472). In general, this framework includes four major elements – prerequisites, the care environment, person-centered processes, and outcomes.
Prerequisites focus on the professional skills of nurses, and their attributes that include competency, the development of interpersonal skills, job commitment, the ability to demonstrate the clarity of personal values and beliefs, and self-awareness. The element of the care environment focuses on the health delivery context and comprises appropriate skill mix, effective staff relationships, the system of shared decision-making, and supportive organizational systems (McCormack & McCance, 2006).
It also includes the physical environment and the potential for further development and innovations. In turn, person-centered processes are concentrated on the activities, such as the work with the patient’s values and beliefs, the providing of holistic care, engagement, and sympathetic presence, that are essential for health care delivery. Finally, outcomes that may be defined as the main component of the theory include the creation of the therapeutic environment, well-being, and the patients’ satisfaction with provided health care. The framework suggests that outcomes explicitly depend on prerequisites, the care environment, and the effective care delivery through person-centered processes
It goes without saying that the Person-Centered Care Nursing Framework implies a logical mid-range nursing theory that may be applied practically. The framework was elaborated on the basis of previous scientific research in the area of nursing, and it has well-defined components. The major advantage of this theory is its focus on the outcomes of health care delivery. While “there is an increasing empirical base for person-centred nursing,” the outcomes of this concept both for patients and nurse practitioners were not determined (McCormack & McCance, 2006, p. 472). Moreover, the framework has been effectively tested in acute hospital settings.
From a personal perspective, the framework elaborated by McCormack and McCance may be definitely characterized by its generalizability and testability as its consistency is observable in the nursing practice. For instance, the patient’s welfare depends on his or her nurse’s competency and focus on needs, personal characteristics, and cultural peculiarities, job commitment, general staff relationships, and the effective decision-making of medical personnel. The theory may be defined as rational as, in the majority of cases that occur in the nursing practice, the framework finds its confirmation. In general, the outcomes of health care delivery are connected with the competency of nurse practitioners, their activities, and the characteristics of medical facilities as well.
Reflection
In general, nursing theory may be defined as the rigorous and creative structuring of ideas in the sphere of nursing that provide a purposeful, systematic, and tentative view of particular phenomena. Through systematic inquiry, nurses may develop essential knowledge to analyze and improve health care delivery to patients. Not all theories that exist in the nursing discipline are unique as a substantial number of them are borrowed from other sciences. Concepts and theories that were originated in related disciplines may be used by nurse theorists and practitioners to explain and investigate specific nursing phenomena. In general, nursing theories include grand theories, mid-range theories, and nursing practice theories.
Through the investigation of various theories, their components, meanings, scopes, and origins, I understood that nursing theories are immeasurably essential as they have practical application in multiple areas of nursing. For instance, this week, I focused on the examination of the Person-Centred Care Nursing (PCN) Framework. It is created by B. McCormack and T. McCance and emphasizes the interdependence between the outcomes of health care delivery and the nurses’ prerequisites, the care environment, and person-centered processes (McCormack & McCance, 2006). First of all, the focus of the framework on person-centered care strengthens my belief that patients, their needs, and peculiarities may be regarded as the most essential and valuable concept of nursing.
In addition, I did not consider before that this mid-range theory is highly applicable in practice, and its understanding contributes to efficient performance. For instance, patients are able to recover soon due to effective medication prescribed by a nurse practitioner, his or her competence and work commitment, and the increased attention to the patients’ needs, personal beliefs, and cultural differences. From a personal perspective, the examination of other nursing theories will be immeasurably beneficial for my practice in the future.
Reference
McCormack, B., & McCance, T. V. (2006). Development of a framework for person-centred nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 56(5), 472-479.