Introduction
Individual sets of beliefs and attitudes have a profound effect on all dimensions of a person’s life: physical, social, religious, and professional. Distinctive environments, individual interactions, and different perceptions of health and illness – all together help healthcare providers to formulate their unique philosophies toward nursing. This paper briefly analyzes the aforementioned criteria through a prism of a personal worldview and its impact on professional practice, aiming at discovering the central reason for nursing existence.
Personal Worldview and Its Impact on Professional Practice
As a committed Christian, I believe that my religious affiliation has a vast effect both on my personal worldview and professional practice. My central belief about the individual person is based on the principles of equality, self-worth, and appreciation. In other words, I attempt to treat everyone I encounter with dignity, respect, and understanding, regardless of their demographics, financial, and social status. Another important aspect of my personal worldview is everlasting credence in the unlimited potential for growth and improvement that people have. Though sometimes, it might be difficult to justify individuals’ poor life choices, I tend to stay optimistic and search for positive qualities in others.
The approach in nursing I usually take in relation to my patients is heavily influenced by my faith and the interconnected sets of ethical principles. As mentioned by Rieg, Newbanks, and Sprunger (2018), caring constitutes the basis of practice for most Christian nurses. In this case, the term “caring” refers to the holistic approach, rather than a comprehensive assessment of the patient’s health, wherein practitioners provide individuals with professional attendance, spiritual assistance, and psychological comfort (Rieg et al., 2018). The aforementioned guidelines are specifically relevant when dealing with chronically or terminally ill people. In times of grief and despair, I attempt to reduce their pain not only through medication but also through empathy, active listening, and support.
Environment: Components and Individual Interactions
While the term “environment” has multiple meanings, the limited scope of this paper does not allow for an in-depth discussion of all the possible interpretations. From my perspective, the two most significant types of environment are socioeconomic and professional. Some of the critical factors that constitute an individual’s socioeconomic environment refer to the ways people meet their basic needs, including, but not limited to, water, food, sanitary, sleep, shelter. Lack or poor quality of the aforementioned components leads to the detached, improper interaction between the person and the surrounding world.
When unable to satisfy their fundamental needs for survival, people may abuse natural resources, instead of benefitting from them or contribute to environmental pollution, rather than bringing positive change to the community.
Another type of setting to consider is the professional nursing environment, which generally constitutes the hospital load, relationships between staff, managers, and patients. In their article, Alves and Guirardello (2016) wrote about the correlation between a stressful work environment and low quality of care. In other words, the more emotionally draining practitioners’ work is, the worse service, in terms of professional assistance and moral support, they can provide. For this matter, it is important to consider that the basis of nursing care is formed not only with one’s personal worldview and socioeconomic status but also the nature of professional relationships.
Health and Illness
In my opinion, health is one of the basic individual rights. As discussed by Rovesti et al. (2018), it is often defined as a state of general well-being when a person does not experience pain or any other troubling symptoms. In other words, health may be compared to a continuum, wherein an individual is in harmony with their body and the surrounding environment. A basic relationship between illness and health can be derived from this interpretation. According to Rovesti et al. (2018), illness is a state, wherein the human body is forced to activate its defensive processes to maintain the desired equilibrium. In this case, equilibrium refers to a person’s physical and mental balance.
Nursing: Reasons for the Existence
From my perspective, the central reason for the existence of nursing is closely related to the approach I choose when dealing with patients. As further discussed by Adams (2016), caring constitutes one of the premises of nursing in terms of compassion, kindness, and support, as fundamental characteristics of healthcare professionals. Consequently, one of the primary roles of nurses is to perform daily duties in a considerate manner, while releasing patients from physical and psychological suffering. Another mission of the healthcare providers is to help those in pain to understand and accept their disease while maintaining dignity.
Ultimately, this reflective analysis discovered the association between my Christian background, personal qualities, and approach to nursing. The critical focus was put on the ways socioeconomic and working environment contribute to the individual interactions, along with their implications for the healthcare industry. With the help of scholarly sources, the relationship between health and illness was derived. Taken into consideration the aforementioned factors, the central reason for the existence of nursing was devoted to caring.
References
Adams, L. Y. (2016). The conundrum of caring in nursing. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 9(1), 1-7. Web.
Alves, D. F., & Guirardello, E. B. (2016). Nursing work environment, patient safety and quality of care in pediatric hospital. Revista Gaúcha de Enfermagem, 37(2). Web.
Rieg, L. S., Newbanks, R. S., & Sprunger, R. (2018). Exploring nurse’s source of caring, faith practices, and view of nursing. Journal of Christian Nursing, 35(3), 168-173. Web.
Rovesti, M., Fioranelli, M., Petrelli, P., Satolli, F., Roccia, M. G., Gianfaldoni, S., … Lotti, T. (2018). Health and illness in history, science and society. Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences, 6(1), 163–165. Web.