Jean Watson Theory of Caring
Caring is the act of feeling and exhibiting concern and empathy for others, in t5his paper I will tackle caring in term of field of nursing. In nursing caring is the attributes that a patient is given to ensure that all is well in term of his needs until the patient recovers. Jean Watson’s theory is transpersonal theory of caring or theory of human caring attributed to patients in hospitals and at home. This theory was developed in the year 1979. Since then the theory has continued to develop (it was revised in 1985 and 1988), but the main tenet remains the same. In this essence is an emphasis on the humanistic aspects of nursing (patient care) combining with some scientific aspects in life. Watson designed this theory to bring about the concept and focus to nursing as distinct health professionals in hospital and health care homes (Fitzpatrick & Whall, 2005, p. 56).
The theory believed that caring is an endorsement of professionalism; these involve the identification of medicine. In addition, these ideas were agreed by Florence Nightingale to. He supported the theory by raising an augment asking who saves a patient when he or she undergoes operation (surgeon). It was establishing that it is the nurses who usually save the patients. The obvious answer for the questing was that it was the nurses that save the patients. According to Watson, nurses do have a good relationship with the patients than the doctors; they had more contact to the patient than the doctors. In addition to these, they do treat the patients but following the instruction from the doctors; in some special cases, the nurses can even treat a patient without help from the doctors. For example during the emergencies times; the doctors might not be there to treat hence the nurses do take control (Fitzpatrick & Whall, 2005, p. 83).
However, the nurses are ever holistic. In this sense, they do have the body, mind and the spirit of the patient. Nevertheless, most of the nurses across the globe do have unconditional acceptance of the patience. Most of the nurses do accept patient from different backgrounds. They treat the entire patient without isolating any of them. To some extends, the nurses do treat the patient with positive regard; they do take their time to study the patient, interview and also to offer the patient with encouragements. This do give the patient hope that one day soon he or she will be okay (recover). I this way, the nurses do get much information about the patient and hence making the treatments become easy. To put more contrast to these, some patients are not only physically sick but also psychological. Thus, when a nurse does these, he will have solved many problems at a single lapse. It is also true that the patient will be readily available to provide some secretive information which can be used to treat him or her (Watson, 2009, p. 200).
On the other hand, the involvement of the nurses may promote their knowledge and their interventions skills to handle the patient. This is usually the case since they do spend much time with the patients (care moments; the time that the nurses do take with the patients). Watson in this theory defines care to be interaction. This is because the nurses make contact. The nurses are the ones who have direct contacts to the patients. To stress on the same, it the nurses who usually walk to patients rooms to see how they do. These do create a feeling of expectation to the patient. When some time reaches, they will eventually know that a given nurse is about to come to check on their health and how they carry on upon the medication attributed to them. In addition, Watson believed that is through the nurse’s attitude and competence a patient environment can become larger or smaller, brighter or drab, threatening or secure and rich or dull. The caring moments or the time that patients do spent with the nurse con transform sickness. This is because they are linked together during this time.
In the clinical concept; it involves the understanding and attributing to their needs to patients. For this reason, whenever there is a problem, it is the nurse who may be asked about a patient that then patient telling his proceedings. In several clinics around the world, it the nurse who encounters Caritas process (CCP), appropriate cases is identified through parenthesis. It quite often that this theory leave behind the traditional aspects of caring and tend to take the modern methods. Therefore, nurses are able to reflect and analyses patient based of the expeditions grasps related to the sickness of a patient.
This theory further described much about the caring attributed to the patient and the connection of the nurse to the patients. In this way, the theory talked much about caring much hence the name “Theory of caring”. In addition, the person who first discovered it was Watson, they decided to distinguish this theory from other by the person who discovered it. In this way, they named it “Jean Watson’s theory of caring”. Despite the theory having developed over years, it does have weaknesses (Watson, 2008, p. 139).
To start with, the theory lacks the spiritual aspect of life. It tends to look and dwell much of the physical and psychological environments. To some extent, the theory ignores that patients believe in God as the provider of life; he give and takes. In this way, the patient tends to put much of the destiny on the hand of the doctors and patients. To some extreme extend, the theory also does not concentrate on paternalistic values. Some aspects of tradition are not considered or covered by this theory. In life, it is often true that human beings have freedom of choice. For example, the nurses at some level cannot perform surgeons without the presence of a doctor. This is weakness which can be eliminated since even if the doctor is around, it is still the nurses that perform the surgeons. In addition, the doctors do describe treatment of patient without experiencing the health illness of the patient. In essence, the doctor has not physically seen the conditions of the patient. Therefore, if the nurses are given the chance and space to treat, they can attribute good services to patients (Fitzpatrick & Whall, 2005, p. 95).
However, the nurse are seen are only seen as the co-participant in the mankind caring process. The nurse are sympathetic to offer care but not seen that they can give treatment to a patient. In this case, when a patient ask for assistance from his doctor and his told that the doctor has left the hospital, he will tend to lose hope that he can recover. This is brought about by the fact that people tend to believe that it is only the doctors who can attribute treatments to patients (Fitzpatrick & Whall, 2005, p. 56).
On the other hand, this theory has a weakness in the sense that in only looks at the relationship between the nurse and the persons under medications. This theory does not yonder to look how the nurses and the doctors consult pharmacists about the medications. Therefore, according to this theory, it two dimensional oriented. It only views the dimension which the nurse offers care to patients and patient’s conditions. If the theory can a little extend beyond these perspectives, the diagnosis and medication of patients can easily be reached (Watson, 2009, p. 189).
Last but not least, this theory has a critic in essence that caring and healing modalism are viewed as sacred feminine archetype. The male can also take part in caring of a patient; for example, studies reveals that when a patient is a male, he should be nursed by a female and vice versa (nurses should be the opposite sex of the patient). They do offer best services and health care to the opposite sex compared to when they nurse the same sex. Thus, this calls for more male to join nursing (Watson, 2008, p. 79).
In conclusion, many patients have lost their live in homes and hospital (including the clinics). There was a need to come up with Watson theory of caring so that the patient could be handled and undergo medications. However, this theory had some weakness as discussed earlier; therefore, it called for more developments. To put more contrast about the theory, the theory tried to establish a good relationship between patients and nurses. The theory poses more emphasis that caring is not only based on ontology but also the ethical relationship between the patient, nurses and doctors. It further stress that the is need for having a good interpersonally communication; nurses should be able to communicate and learn to handle patients best. Hence a good nurse should have consciousness on the attributes to handle a patient; he or she should be bright to read the kind of care a patient needs and avail it to him or her.
